passes by chance and as a spy not by license S t Augustine tels us of Imperiall Laws made against both heathen worships hereticall writings and outrages And I reade of Marcianus his Edict against nice and uselesse disputations of divine Mysteries yea Honorius and Theodosius commanded the Books of prophane men written against the honour of Religion and in defiance of the Church to be burned In S t Jeroms time Origens Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was ill resented by the Orthodox Ruffinus and Pammachius carp at the father for translating it and charge the errors therein upon him as making them legible by his Edition of them which otherwise would not have been understood And S t Jerom is forced to answer it thus What I did I did to discover Truth Do you think me an Interpreter Proditor fui prodidi haereticum ut Ecclesiam ab haereticis vindicarem Ruffinus is charged by Pope Anastâ—sius to have affixed a Martyrs Name to an hereticall Book on purpose to have it take more and spread farther The Book of the Trinity charged on Tertullian was not his no nor S t Cyprians but a Novatians It hath been ever a course in the Church of God to censure and inhibit Books and Disputations which tend to destruction and not to edification and is so farre from being an entrenchment on Christian Liberty or a burthen to tender consciences that it argues a high and holy zeal well becoming Christian polities and governors 't was good counsel Maecenas gave Augustus Vt ipse Deos moribus patriae receptos colat ad eundem cultum alios compellat nec Deorum contemptorem quâ—m permittat aut prestigiatorem tolerot haud dubium nihil magni futurum qui deos contempserit Having thus shortly given a touch upon some of the most remarkable Vertues of Antiquity and Elder Christians My conclusion aims to draw an humble parallell to these excellent presidents from the notable Christians and Christian practises of this once glorious Church the Church of England I know Comparisons are odious and it ill becomes us to vye with Fathers and Martyrs whose lives have been lights and deaths harvests to after-times yet in this case I conceive it pardonable to advance the mercy of God to us by this just and warrantable Vindication and the rather because our mothers miseries seem to be a most triumphant gratification to her enemies making them conclude her forsaken of God because smitten by men and advantageth the interest of the Papacy as Cardinall Sfondrato upon the like grounds in his Negotiations with Charles the fifth noted To give then this inflammation some lenitive and to return their insultation a gentle refutation I shall hope by Gods leave to present her as famous for order and enconragement of Learning and her professors as remarkable for their piety charity and policy as any Christians that preceded them and that not only before but also since the Reformation of this Church in the abjuration of Popery First then The Church of England since the Reformation hath had sundry pious Princes and Prelates who have with warm zeal maintained the honour of Scripture allowing it the only rule of faith both in the direct precepts and necessary divine consequences drawn from it forbidding all traditions in competition with it all adulteration in allay of it and commanding its translation purely out of not understood tongues into the mother Language that people might know and hear the will of God iâ— his Word declared to them and celebrating all Church-services so as people may be most edified by them This was no small advance from Popery that Religion grew English that care was taken that in the Lessons and Liturgies of our Service pure Scripture was read and if any of the Apocrypha which but rarely yet that only which was morally virtuous and least to be suspected or offensive In this Church not only Martyrs in the daies of Queen Mary died but also Bishops and Presbyters numberlesse ever since have preached and wrote for the honour of holy Scripture as that which contains all things necessary to salvation So declare the articles of our Church And though with grief I write it all of place and learning amongst us have not given Scripture that testimony in their lives but that a morall Epictetus or a Seneca might upbraid them yet the Church in her aggregate consideration and thousands eminent in her have personally attested their obedience to Scripture and brought all doctrines to the test of it according to that of the Prophet To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to that 't is because there is no light in them Therefore in the Stat. 1 Eliz. c. 1. Not the Pope not partiall and factious Conventions but the Scripture is the judge of heresies and Counsels rightly convened judging according to it This the Laity declared not but upon serious consultation with the Clergy in Convocation that so every sanction might have its due weight I know there have been those that contrary to Scripture have brought in though blessed be God they had no rooting dangerous doctrines and practises threatning overthrow to our well-ordered Discipline by their innovating pragmatiqueness but these were not owned by any publique Canons or State laws but upbraided as encroachments and openly disgraced as scarres to our Religion and some of those that furthered this have accounted to God and men and therefore are to be passed over without further censure The Church hath ever been stanch and her doctrine Apostolique barked at by many but overturned by none traduced for new and worthless but upon search found to be As the apple trees among the trees of the wood shady and fruitfull comfortable in life and pleasant at the hour of death This made the L. Cromwell in H. 8. time in his last speech neer his death call to the people to bear witness that he died in the Catholique faith not doubting in any article of his faith no nor doubting in any Sacrament of the Church And all this because the articles of faith were not founded upon S t Francs S t Dominick this Pope or that Councill but upon the Scriptures upon Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ being chief corner stone 2. This Church hath answered primitive times in care of Government Ecclesiastique No Nation in the world had a more thriving Church then we In none more purity state decency learning then we In no Church the Clergy more honestly priviledged and respected then in ours wherein Government was not at the Ordinaries pleasure but limited and confined by Laws and fettered to prevent impertinent domineering In this Government according to the pattern of elder times was avowed the Power of Rulers and Princes over all persons within and pretenders from without their Dominions though not their power in sacris yet circa sacros in sacros which every person in Orders was to subscribe
aperiunt enim quasi fontes sapientiae qui aquam non habent doctrinarum promittunt imbrem velut nubes propheticae ad quas perveniat veritas Dei turbinibus exagitantur demonum vitiorum So he Alas they are in a devious road to fame who endeavour Learnings ruine and deserve no nobler a memoriall then Scylla had whose evils were so great that there was neither leâ—t place for greater nor number for more That wise man of the Garamantes spake truth to Alexander Glory ariseth not from violent substraction of what is anothers but from bestowing on others what is our own the best way to be remembred for gallant is to write our memoriall in the Table Adamant of a Charity and Bounty that may outlast us I love Aemilius his gravity and imitable worth his vertuous minde and Learned head better then Aristippus his rapacious heart though it had to friend a grave countenance and a purple robe The Lord deliver the Learned from those men who would have the Name of Learned perish and their seed begg their bread and give and preserve to them such Kings and Protectors as may speak comfortably to them as God did to his He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye Thirdly Antiquity and Elder times have been Zealous for Government and Order in the Church as the Church of Christ hath no custom for contention so not for coâ—fusion God is order and good discipline is one way to make men conform to God as orders Law-giver S t Cyprian one of the first Fathers and a noble Martyr defines Discipline the keeper of hope the conservative of faith a good conductor in our race of Christianity a benefit reaching forth security and increase to those that embrace her and portending destruction to those that refuse or neglect her And Calvin when he disownes all Church usurpation yet concludes That the Church hath Laws of order to promote concord and defend government And reason it should be so for if God be order and his administrations be orderly as himself then disorder as nothing of his ought to be kept out of the Church to which it is peculiarly an enemy The Church is a treasury disorder robbs it 'T is a clear stream of living water disorder puddles it 'T is a fair and bright Heaven disorder clouds and inlowers it 'T is a chart virgin disorder is an impure raptor and corrupts it 'T is a precious orb of spicknard disorder like dead flies putrifies it The foresight of this made our Lord Jesus bespangle his Church with gifts to all purposes of Order and Ornnament He hath set sayes S t Paul in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers then gifts of healing Helps to Governments diversities of tongues And now I have found Church and Government both in a Scripture I hope I may without offence joyn them together Church-Government and assert that of Divine Institution I think most parties are agreed that Government Ecclesiastique as well as Civil is of God all the litigation is What this Ecclesiastique Government which is of God is By what Name and Title it is distinguished and dignified And God wot the heat and humour of peevish brains have set Paul and Barnabas as it were asunder nay hath made such a crack in Christian Eutaxie ' that as Bernardas Dyas Bishop of Calatrore said of the Church of Vicenza that may I of this Chuach of England It is so disordered that it requireth more an Apostle then a Bishop Orpheus sooner charmed Pluto and Proserpina to part with his Eurydice then men amongst us be perswaded to part with their passions though all their swellings and monstrous impregnations like that of the mountains produce only a Mouse a most ridiculous and inglorious scabb of self-conceited Leprosie One party will have Church-Discipline so precisely set down in the Word of God that nothing is left to Christian prudence to alter Others are diametrall to these and make with Cardinall Cusanus Government accountable to the times as he said Scripture was and therefore to be expounded according to the current rites and yet forsooth it is not to be meant as if the Church at one time expoundeth in one fashion and at another time in another sort a Riddle the Scripture must be expounded according to the times and the times according to which Scripture is to be expounded are now this an on that and yet the Church must not be meant to expound it in one fashion at one time and in another fashion another time There are a third sort who fix the essentials of Government in Scripture and the collaterals they admit as left to the order of the particular Churches of Christ this I take to be most safe and moderate and this S t Augustine delivers as his Opinion to Januarius long ago These things quoth be are left free there is no appointment by God concerning them prudent Christians are at liberty to conform to whatever Church they come and in which they live for whatever is enjoyned not contrary to faith and good manners ought to be submitted to for peace and civil societies sake and I saith the Father diligently considering this thorowly do deliver this as an Oracle receiving confirmation from God And truly this I judge to be the meaning of those brotherly expressions that have and ought ever to ebbe and flow from Christian Churches to each other and from the Protestant Churches especially For if the Church of England when it was under Episcopacy saved the rights of other Churches which were disciplinary and condemned them not but held correspondency with them giving them the right hand of fellowship and the other forreign Churches published their candor and approbation of Episcopacy where it was constituted and pressed obedience to it witnesse Reverend Calviâ— in divers places and on divers occasions Learned Zanchy Grave Bucer Eloquent Beza Profound Mâ—uline Accomplisht Chamier yea and multitudes of others of note in the Reformed Churches then doth this arise from that apprehension that the generals of Government being one and the same under both Disciplines Charity ought to passe the rest to the least injury of Christian Concord Farre be it from me to part whom God hath joyned together Wherein the Churches agree let them mind the things that tend to piety and unity the rest God will reveal in his good time for as Calvin after S t Augustine determines it Let every Church observe her own Customs It is profitable sometimes that Religion should have some variety so there be no â—mulation and new things be not introduced for novelties sake The Churches of Christ then have agreed upon Government as appointed by God yea and about the persons interessed in it those Bishops Presbyters and Deacons they never owned Armilustra's in which Souldiers were Priests nor Gifted men unordained for Church Officers this is of
late date and no pedigree hath this presumption beyond our times And I wish that these men who arrogate to themselves the Office of the Priesthood would consider how unqualified they are to it and return to their callings for by reason of these wandrings all the grand renown of Antiquity is blemished For they to gain a Name so themselves reprobate all Church uses and Church-stories and make them matters of superstition and offence to tender Consciences so wise are the children of the world in their generation But for all their confidence the Church of Christ will glory in that they count her infirmities she will preserve her Catalogues of Martyrs Confessors Bishops Presbyters she will own Churches and Oratories set apart for her use before Dioclesians time called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which daily increased in number and magnificence She will own Lyturgies and set forms of Devotion and can instance S t James chosen Bishop of â—erusalem by the Apostles called Jacobus Liturgus from a Liturgie he made for the use of that Church Maronita asserting Litnrgies made by the Apostles for the Eastern and Western Churches Origen speaking of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Eusebius of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used by the good Emperour Constantine in his Court by Justin Martyr Cyprian and others upon which the painfull Centurists conclude Without doubt certain forms of prayers publick they then had and they adde not to know and rehearse those forms of prayer was in a kinde to disown the name of Christian For as S t Augustine said of the Donatists then they ceased to be oâ—r brethren when they said not Our Father which art in Heaven And if set Forms be erroneous and to use them be an error 't is an error of the purest times and purest Christians so long as Christians have Christ Jesus for their Patron and pattern they may use holy set Forms not neglecting their exercise of graces in due time and place with much benefit I and the Church will avow set Forms of faith Creeds and Systems of sound Doctrine and belief such as were the Creeds which they and we call the Apostles the Athanasian the Nicene Creeds yea and those of Tertullian Origen Gregorius Niccaesariensis Nazianzen Victorinus Hylarie Basil Epiphanius Daâ—asus and others and singing of Psalms in her meetings ever since Ignatius his time witness also Plynie's Epistle to the Emperour Trajan which Eusebius records l. 3. c. 27. And sundry other things of like nature she owns without blushing wondring that any should distaste her for her fidelity And that order may appear to be the more conservative of whatever falls under its Empire I cannot but observe how precisely the Heretick Church imitated the Orthodox and so notably did they ape it that thereby they gained much consistence to themselves and gave much grievance to the Christians of more purity then were they The Arians had their Bishops and Presbyters eight of them were in the famous Counsel of Nice Nestorius was Bishop of Constantinople and there is mention made of Paul a Novatian Bishop and others they had their places of meeting in which were Scriptures read and Sacraments administred their Creeds yea and their Martyrs such as Metrodorus Themison and Alexander Eusebius tells us that the Montanists boasted of their Martyrs and no worder for S t Chrysostome gives us the reason The Devil saith he hath his humble and meek chastâ— and charitable his fasters and prayers of every good thing that God made to mans salvation he hath a shew and semblance which he imploys to seduction to the end that there may be no distinction between real and seeming good that plain-hearted men who are artless in distinguishing may be caught by the snares of those whom they mistake for the faithful servants of God Thus that Father And may we not fear this old Serpent hath been too busie in the differences in Religion not onely abroad in the world but also at home in this Church while he hath made divisions amongst brethren such as no age or story exceeds O Lord Jesus how sad is it to think that the legacy of peace which thou bequeathedst to thy Church is expended nay defrauded and lost in the crowd and throng of private passions and private insolence and that out of this Church should come evil instruments who not like theeves only steal grapes out of the Vineyard but like wilde Asses tread down all the Vines such as Boner who when truth is backed by power shews himself a very exemplary Protestant but when the Lord Cromwell was dead who preferred him for what of God he thought was in him then he proves the most pernicious Papist and bloody fiend that the Papacy here had and truly I think there is no Church-enemy so great as a waverer who is not much beneath an Apostate for he that is any thing to gain an interest will soon be nothing indeed to preserve it And in all this coyle and hurry in this Hinnon of distasts wherein our children of prudence have been offered in sacrifice to the Molech of Passion and Contest were carried as Suidâ—s sayes those were between Dorotheus and Maâ—inus both Arrians more out of pride then piety to advance their own wills rather then to polish truth to a pervious clarity for what is the matter speak Conscience be ingenious their faces will gather blackness of reproach at the last day whose have not now the blush of full and free confession Was Christ and his Cause holiness and her Rights the main drift the cause of mounting the scaling-ladder against the Church speak ye sons of Levi whose thunderbolts not long since rent all in sunder and whose virulent irritations made such wide breaches in charity There was I confess â— time when Priests were ingaged in wars but not with their brethren but Midianites not by choice but command of God Ye grave men of the Clergie who dissented from what was established by Law and hoped to have had your judgements answered to their latitude in the change of Church-polity suffer me I beseech you to bemoan that ye should rise up in prosecution of your spiritual Fathers and brethren whose blemishes that Evangelique piety should have covered and for whose reformation not ruine ye should have strove in prayer with God and by petition to men did ye well to be angry have ye comfort in those reproaches that some cast on you when yoâ—r frailty is displayed in the Escocheon of your punishment When Reuben grows unstable as water and goeth up to his fathers bed no wonder Jacob condemns him not to excell though once he were the excellency of dignity and of power Ought ye not O holy and pious souls to have stood between the living and the dead and said to the destroyer when he was no adder to your
forth 122 blowings and amongst Roses gilly-flowers and Pionies incredible varieties So out of the glorious and pure Doctrines of Faith which the Apostles and their Followers comprised in repent and believe there is put forth such an ocean of points of Religion and all of them pressed on the people to be believed that it is hard to finde truth in the crowd of contests about her and easie to mistake as Mary did the gardiner for Christ error for truth both pretending their Jus divinum's their authoritative confidences as their just Titles to mens beliefs and blaming men as restive and sottish if they resigne not themselves to a sensless and universal credulity In the mean time things of greater concernment are neglected and the things God slubbered over and made to run counter one to another disuse of Church-Government hath made every man a Micah an appointer to himself of whatsoever likes him best and a neglecter of those services that the Christian Church thorow out the world imbraced there are many that make preaching like the lean Kine in Pharaoh's dream to eat up all other Church-Ordinances though never so beauteous and well-favoured publick Prayers and publick Confessions of Faith even that which our Lord Jesus taught us in the Gospel as the Form of Prayer of his own dictation hardly passes current no nor is that Creed which bears the name of the Apostles Creed which this Church hath ever received and her Martyrs in Queen Mary's days by name Bishop Farrar Hooper the Bishops of Worcester and Glocester Taylor Philpot Bradford Cromt Rogers Saunders Lawrence Coverdale owned as that they believed generally and particularly censuring those to erre from the truth who do otherwise and judicious Calvin says was the form of Confession which all Christians had in common amongst them as writ from the mouths of the Apostles or faithfully collected out of their Writings This Creed I say many think unfit to be rehearsed in Congregations and some are suspected to villifie it yea the Sacraments of Christ are almost obsoleted amongst us in some Parishes neither Sacrament in others but one and if that so restrained to particular persons that there seems to be a tacite reproach laid on those who are not of the number of Communicants who therefore become enemies to Ministers and their Messages because they are in a kinde cut off from the Congregation I confess it is fit that holy things should be given to holy men and it were to be wished all the Congregation were holy but if perfection be reserved for hereafter Ministers must bear with the imperfections of their people as well as people with the over-rigidness of their Ministers If people be not scandalous the Church never denied them the benefit of Sacraments and if Ministers be not over-scrupulous they will not begrudg men their Saviours allowance In my opinion it seems but reasonable that people should give a sober free account of their faith to their lawfull Pastor in a loving and unimperious way desiring it of them but then Churchmen should be advised what is competent knowledge in a Christian and propose such questions to them as argue not a design rather to blunder them then satisfie themselves of their understanding Ministers are fathers and must bear with the infirmities of their flocks They must not be brambles rending and tearing the people committed to their charge but fig-trees vines and olive-trees yeelding them fatness sweetness and fruitfulness To such as these I am perswaded no sober Christian dare deny an account of his faith For if the Apostles charge be to be always ready to give answer to every man that askoth you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear then much more to the Embassadors of Christ his Ministers His Ministers I say by Church Mission and Canonique Authority not presumers who come unsent for as the Civilians well observe Non sunt successores in officio qui ad officium accedunt alio modo quam institutum est to such Ministers as are truly called no man ought to deny a declaration of his faith as competently he is able And with such discoveries I think Ministers ought to rest satisfied and the ignorance of their Parishioners to pity pray for and by their best instruction to amend And those Ministers whom a Parishioners sober account and inoffensive conversation will not convince to admit as worthy to communicate may be feared to have somewhat more in their design then the glory of God and the good of souls and if they will not give testimony of their candor while they live their death-beds will tell tales to the world little to their credit or comfort Learned D r Reynolds reports that Luther when he lay upon his death-bed acknowledged to Melancthon In negotio coenae nimium esse factum yet saith the learned Sir Simon D'ewes taking counsel rather of men theu Gods Word for fear lest if he retracted them the people would suspect the rest and so return to Popery he accounted it best to declare his judgement in private Thus he Well fare the ancient Fathers who valued truth above credit yea conscience above life Ruffinus tells us that S t Clement in his Apostolique Epistle counsels all his fellow Christians rather to forsake him then to part with the peace of the Church and to incur the danger of division And S t Aug. tells us That in his time by the turbulencies of some in the Church many Orthodox and excellent Bishops and Presbyters were cast out of the Church and separated from their charges yet they bore the disgrace and persecution patiently never making Schism or starting up heresie to annoy Christianity therby Docebunt homines quam vero affectu quanta sinceritate charitatis Deo serviendum sit hos coronat in occulto pater in secreto videns Rarum hoc videtur genus sed tamen exempla non desunt immo plura sunt quam credi potest These mens demeanours quoth he teach the world What the power of grace and sincerity is in the soul and how God is to be waited upon even while he hides his face from the seed of Jacob. But though these quoth the Father be rare examples of self-deniall yet such presidents there are and those more then can be almost believed For as the same Father proceeds true Religion is neither to be found in the confusions of Pagans nor in the purgings of hereticks nor in the feebleness of schismaticks nor in the blindness of Jews but amongst those who are Orthodox and Catholick Christians And therefore the differences in this Church upon these small grounds that appear to us were in no sort worth owning by sober men especially to the degrees they are ascended to but rather are to be deplored with tears of blood for those that have true Christian charity would sooner part with much of their own
fall into the pit that is digged for them by him who deceitfully cries O coelum but steereth to that infernall center of which he is Prince namely the bottomless pit But with others of a more florid and accurate nimbleness he deals under-board making them unawares Theomachize turn the levell of their parts against Heaven thus became the Philosophers Patriarchs of Haeresies and disturbers of truth by their corrupt doctrine as Jerom upbraids them thus coggs he many into his lure by prevailing with them to be instruments in division and unsavoury opinions making beleeved and received truths as questionable as Guy of Warwick Don Quixot which many believe fancies and reducing them to they may and theey may not be and by crying up rationall and plausible axioms for dogmatick credends as if God were accountable to man and the Altar religion not sacred unless the gold of humane reason sanctified it or as if humane and depraved reason were the standard to which the things of God are to be reduced and to which conformed That as the Tyrant stretched every one he took upon his bed and fitted them to his beds proportion by cutting them shorter if they were too long and stretching them longer if they were too short so these resolve every mystery of Christianity by that rule which is too weak to warrant them too narrow to limit it These Errors that have marched under the white banner of Reason as they have been most plausible so strook they most dangerously at the root of Christianity endangering the fall of that Tree which with incomparable procerity reacheth Heaven serving the Church for a ladder of ascent thither Other Opinions and Heresies inchoated from immoralities and seconded by persons debauched and profligate like Boorish uproars soon decline and come to nothing blasphemous tenents need no confutation they fall by their own weight the Eunomian Arian Macedonian haereticks though they differ in Name yet agree in mischief yet S t Jerom sayes they dealt plainly with the world and there needed no confutation more then they gave themselves But the Pelagian haeresie that keeps it self covert does the mischief this flies about and chatters in every corner and hath so many secret evasions that 't is hard to charge it with any fault to cover which it hath not a curious and well contrived black patch There is no Church-Traytor so horrid as he that gives himself and his opinions as Caligula did the lovely titles of Pious Great Good whenas he was rather a Monster then a Prince they are Suetonius his words so those Opinions are rather blasphemy then piety these Adamites figleaves never long covered their nakedness nor have the misling showers of their Oratory wet to the root of sober mindes soon they have ripened and as soon have been rotten again But those errors that have been dyed in the grain colour of Reason cladd in the purple and noble vest of an exact liver dress'd with the garnishes of Achitophels brain have harmfully passed currant not only with the vulgar whose faith is pinned usually upon their Rulers sleeve their Religion mercenary to his pleasure and their souls at his service but with those that boast they have the discerning of spirits and can judg the Pearl of truth from the pibble of trash upon this hank Novatus a crafty perjurious and inhumane fellow withdrew many excellent Presbyters such as Maximus Vrbanus Sydonius Celerinus who yet were called off from him and Sisinnius the Novatian Bishop by his noble carriage and pleasant wit beloved of all and thought the most excellent man of his time yet being a Heretick did much hurt and proved a great trouble to S t Chrysostom As in all courses of life labour tends to rest and the weary traveller longs for his Inne so in the mindes Navigation there is a port wished for Solomon gave himself to know wisedom and folly but when he had wearied himself with disquisition he concludes all vanity making that the Ararat on which his floating Ark rested Knowledge hath its bounds beyond which it must not go God often suffers pride to border upon parts that Carthage might be Rome's alarum to watch since she hath a politique foe and there is no impossibility of surprisall the love of God is more seen in keeping his from the danger of a fall then in suffering them to behold the glory of this world in the vast speculations of their minde and to be on a pinacle dangerously precipitous to gain the prospect And if he that gave himself to know every thing when he knew most knew too little of himself may we not fear that many men of great parts often pry so farre into the Book of Eternity into the cabinet of wisedom into the counsels of Providence that at last they come away leprous and prove infectious to others as well as uncomfortable to themselvs He was a good man that cried out Scientia mea me damnat As Stars differ one from another in glory so errours have been different in their influence and malignant aspect on the Church some errours have been of the first magnitude errours in the foundation those of Cerinthus Montanus Arius Donatus and others These with others little lesse vexatious had their broach from men proud and discontented with their condition Arius was a Presbyter in the Church of Alexandria and became so great a pest to the Church meerly out of envy against and ill will to Alexander Bishop of that Sea who was preferred before him against whose Life and Doctrine he could take none advantage and Novatus because he would but could not be a Bishop set on foot that great mischief which bore his Name and not only so but the devil took advantage to seduce men of great parts to this design of errour in the Church Socratos tels us of Dorotheus and Timotheus two Arian Bishops great Clerks who revived Arianism when it was almost dead yea to perfect his policy he takes women into the plot and makes them his lying spirits Proctresses to his hellish Incantations I have it from S t Jerome who reports that Simon Magus was aided by Helen the harlot Nicholas of Antioch by the women he brought into common use there Marcion by one he sent before him to Rome Apelles by Philomenes Montanus by Prisca and Maximilla Arius by Constantia Sister to Constantine the Great Donatus by Lucilia Zoroastes by Galla and Elpidius by Agape It seems 't is a credulous world that takes womens words in matters of this moment and a crafty devil that knows the cogent argument is from that charming Instrument Woman I need not recite the cursed machinations they set forth to serve their designs what politick practiques they enfranchised what desperate untruths they hatched what glorious lights they obscured what goats-hair and badgers skinnes they used to attire their monster in to name is to blemish
Ark been taken by the Philistims the glory had been departed from the Israel of Gods Church How much prophane mirth would the sonnes of Error have made with these Songs of Zion had God given them up into their power But blessed be God the Church hath ever had ane held the Scriptures in high value though not admitted all parts of it for Canon at one and the same time sometimes they found parts of it not in good hands as they thought other parts by Hereticks were corrupted and handed to them not as they were in the autographon but with emendations to which were added many spurious and rejectitious Gospels Prophecies and Epistles fitted to answer the lying divination Satan had no foot other parts of Scripture not primariò authenticae the ancients allowed to be read sub regulâ morum but not as a rule of faith but such only as were received from Prophets and allowed by Christ Jesus his Apostles and their Scribes and Schollers and their successors hath the Church owned and adhered to and those are the Books in the Canon of our holy Mother the Church of England not that all mouthes have been stopped or all Christians agreed in the harmony no all have not beleeeved Gods testimony in the Churches report and traditional fidelity S t Jerom tells us that it was usual with hereticks to corrupt Catholick Authors the Eunomians dealt thus with Clemens the elder and Ruffinus is not behind-hand for this trick while he prefixed the Name of a holy Martyr to a book of Arrianisme and Evagrius charges them of entitling their hereticall books with the Names of Holy Orthodox men such as Athanasius Gregorius Thaumaturgus and Julius in brief Theodoret is round with them telling us they cared not what Law they broke what boldness and freedom they took for maintenance of their wickedness nay oftentimes they made it the master-piece of their blasphemy to violate the holy Law of God As men in groves cut this stick and that wand they like and leave the rest so pick erroneous men this book and that passage here and there and leave the rest as useless Whatever is contrary to their device and casts dirt in their face they reject and disown their darkness and the light of Scripture agrees not Light is au ill guest to an ill conscience and because Scripture troubles their Owle eyes and dismantles their impostry they cannot away with it Tertullian perstringes the Valentinians for their clucking into corners and their sculking up and down and sayes Our Doves-coat hath no guile is open and visible to all comers who have liberty to see and hear what we do And 't is a Note unimprobated that patrons and professors of error and none but such have ever dishonoured Scripture or questioned its authority nor have ever any who had a grounded hope of Heaven by Gods mercy held themselves above Ordinances as the means of attaining it nor have they ever pick'd and choos'd cull'd and refus'd this and not that Ordinance but had respect to all Gods commands and equally adored all his dispensations Charge an holy soul with queaziness in this kind object to it that it loves not to be limited and enlarged by the word not to humble it self to God in prayer not to obey Authority for the Lord and for conscience sake and it answers in Hazael's word Am I a dog that I should do this No this spot is not the spot of Gods people 't would be a sully which mountains of niter could not cleanse 'T is true indeed in the interpretation of this or that particular Scripture there hath been yet is and ever will be to the end of the world different opinions and many passions have lathered so high that charity hath often layen in the suds as is the Proverb even amongst men otherwayes without exception as between S t Augustine and S t Jerom in the Exposition on the second Chap. of the Galatians yea and in many things and under many temptations some of you have lived and spoken somewhat against the majesty and authority of the holy Scripture as Origen by Name who therefore confessed his errors and publikely retracted them as appears in his Epistle to Fabian and as S t Jerom testifies in his Epistle to Pammachius and Oceanus And therefore Legends Canons and Traditions brought into some Churches as grounds of belief and made obligatory to the conscience as onely the holy Scriptures ought to be held are but of late date in the Christian Church for S t Jerom or Epiphanius in him writes thus to Theophilus That thou mindest us of Church-Canons we thank thee but know this that nothing is so antique as the Laws and rights of Christ And Father Marinarus in the Counsel of Trent denied that the Fathers made Traditions to stand in competition with Scripture but good man he was born down with the many voices that decried his sound assertion as that which better beseemed a Colloquie in Germany then a Counsel of the universal Church but what he said was nevertheless true because disliked by those vipers for as they then so their predecessors long before cried up Traditions and perhaps they had it from the Jews or rather from the devil the author of it both in Jews and others Our Lord Jesus arraigns the Jews for making void the Commandements of God by mens traditions and transgressing the Commandements of God by traditions yea of rejecting the Commandements of God to fulfill them and the Apostle S t Paul reproves this and cautions against it Beware saith he least any man spoyl you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ Where the Apostle doth not simply dehort from traditions in affirmance of Scripture or civil custom but from such use of traditions as tends to the eclipse of the testimony of truth in the word written which is transcendently above the witness of man and therefore I cry out to all those New-lights as S t Jerom did Spare your pains hug not the cloud of your conceits instead of the Juno truth Why do you bring that to sale which the primitive Church for four hundred years never heard of Why take you upon your shoulders that task which Peter and Paul never taught nor were they now alive would own untill this day the Christian world hath been without this Doctrine and I in mine old age will profess that faith in which I was born and into which baptized Would S t Jerom have been stanch had he lived to these times wherein old and sound Religion is like wormeaten lumber cast into the outhouses or like unfashionable furniture turned out of the chambers of note to adorn the Nursery or the Chaplains lodgings I trow he would and had he he must have reproached many professors who now would pull
out the eyes of those their Teachers for whom not many years since they would have pulled out their own But enough of this I return to Traditions which while they contend with Scripture or are made as supplements to inch out Scripture thought too short I wholly disallow Though I confess I love ingenuous freedom and I beleeve Religion is not in many things so stiffgirt as some ridgid people suggest while they portray it clubsisted ready to smite every one it meets with nay in a keenness like Peters sword strait out and off with the ear of every opponent yet do I not comply with the judgment of some who rest on a Counsel-Canon as on Gospel and make less difference between them then is almost discernable because I fear it hath somewhat of a popish smatch in it for were not the Popes infallibility and the Popes virtuall presence and authoritative influence in Counsels in part leaned to some of our Profession would be more nice in that kinde then they are I will contest in reverence and duty to holy Counsels and Synods lawfully called and convened with any he that 's most a servant to them God forbid I should depraetiate worth in any man or judge my self fit to censure and not rather to be censured but this I say Da mihi Magistrum Christum Da mihi Regulam S. Scripturam In matters of this weight I 'le to the beam of the Sanctuary no Master will I own as to imperation over my faith but Christ I like not to crave mens pardons as the Sicilian Ambassadors did Pope Martin the fourths blasphemously Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis While they speak according to Scripture I 'le obey them and take heed not to offend them but if they prove illuminates and eccentrically wilde that they tell me Christ is in this Enthusiasm and that new Light which neither I nor they understand nor doth Gods word clear out to me they are to me but as tinkling cymbals I neither care for their Euge's nor fear I their Anathema's Whatever then becomes of other Writings my zeal and vote shall be ever to preserve the renown of the holy Books of the old and new Testament let loose persons call them by those profane nick-names of Lesbiam regulam Evangelium nigrum Theologiam atramentariam nasum cereum and let Atheists deride them they are the Christians Magna Charta for Heaven cursed be he that violates them to profane uses they are the Christians Canaan Let profane worldlings look with bloody Gardner's eyes upon it not endure to see the Book called Verbum Dei yet the sincere Christian values it as his Canaan the milk and honey of which refresheth him against his tedious march in the wilderness of this sinful and sorrowful life accounting all other Books as Egypts garlick and onyons to its Manna and Quails This this is full of the dew of Heaven as was Gideon's Fleece when all other Writings profit nothing but are dry and sapless 't is the Iliads which every devout Alexander who by faith overcomes the world lodgeth in his noblest Cabinet his heart 'T is the Tree of life on which hangs the Fruit of the knowledge of good and evil 't is the Ark of God in which as it were is the pot of Manna and Aaron's rod comfort and correction therein are Gods staves of beauty and bonds his binding and his drawing cords yea therein the whole duty of man both to God and his neighbour is comprized Now judge O man what could God do more for his Vineyard the Church then he hath done In giving her such an Oracle for her doubts such a Light against her darkness such a Touchstone of her Purity and her rivals adulteration And what can the Church do less in return to God then by signal fidelity maintain the honor and authority of this Canon deposited with her Let that blasphemous new light M r Edwards mentions call the Scriptures the golden Calf and brazen Serpent that set at variance King and Parliament and Kingdom against Kingdom that things would never be well till the golden calf and brazen serpent were broken to pieces yet next to heaven I will venter all I have in the holy war for Scripture He that comes to surprize that Capitol shall have my life his sacrifice and my prayers his curse and let all Christian people say Amen Amen This is the first Jewel in Antiquities Crown her zeal for the reverence of the holy Scriptures Secondly The elder Church Christian was express about a Ministry and the right qualification of Ministers according to the holy Institution of our Lord Jesus the great Head Doctor and Bishop of his Church who left her not as common in which every Christian as to the publick use of gifts had alike right but separated some to instruct to exercise power of the Keys to continue succession and to minister the holy things of the Gospel by virtue of an infallible promise of his cooperation with them to the end of the world This separation has been for many hundred yeers declared by Imposition of hands which the Church calls Ordination and has Apostolique practice to warrant it In Acts 6. 6. Stephen is mentioned to be a man full of faith and of the holy Ghost yet did he not execute any Ministerial Office upon account of his gracious qualifications till he was presented to the Apostles they had prayed for him and laid their hands on him a Scripture well to be weighed by men of contrary judgement especially since backed by the general practice of the Church Catholique For if the Churches fidelity in this Gospel Tradition and Universally received Ordinance should be questioned the Canon of holy Writ and all the Doctrines and Practises of Christianity will become litigious since the Church as the pillar and ground of truth is the deliverer and declarer of them And we are not to doubt but that the holy Ghost who leads into all truth hath rightly guided the Catholique Church to this belief since all holy men of all times and Churches how different soever each from other in Rites and situation have agreed upon it and accordingly declared themselves and nothing hath ever been found against it worthy the sway of our assents in contradiction to so Oecumenical an acknowledgment And truly I much wonder any should be of contrary judgement who ought to know the validity of Antiquities consent echoing to Scripture were Scripture silent had the practice of Antiquity no footing therein I should be as unwilling to follow it as any he that is most against it For that of Reverend Calvin is most true Si in sola Antiquitate c. If Antiquity be only the Judge then prodigious heresies which brake out in Apostolique times will become Catholique faith But when the Word of God gives rise to what in this kinde Antiquity embraceth and
becomes precept or president to its practice then is the Church to be followed in such her warrantable customs and observations In the 28 Chapter of S t Matthew our Lord Jesus is mentioned to have ascended in the 16 th verse the Eleven are said to go away into Galilee unto a mountain where Jesus had appointed them there he appears to them in a glorious condition which caused them to worship him as Emanuel God Man Mediator In the 18 th verse our Lord owns the donation of all power to him both in Heaven and Earth before this Christ is not mentioned so solemnly to transfer power Ministerial to his Apostles he asserts his own Authority before he gives them theirs that done Go ye therefore and teach all Nations follows which compared with that other passage As my Father hath sent me so send I you fully cleers to me That transferrency of power Ministerial from God the Father to God the Son and from God the Son to his Apostles and to their Successors in the Ministry who in Tertullian's phrase are the Hereditary Apostles and Disciples of Christ I do not affirm there is an equality of spiritual power in Ministers now to that in the Apostles no more then in the Apostles to that in Christ all Vessels are not of a capacity if the Spirit were on him without measure and upon Apostles and Ministers restrained and as they could bear then we must allow a disparity in the degree God gave him a Name above all names both in heaven and earth saith the Apostles and no creature must contend with its maker But this I dare affirm That the power Spiritual and Ministerial which the a-A-Apostles expressed by imposition of hands and since in conformity to them and upon the same ground they do carry on who are lawfully called to the Ministry in the Church Christian is as truly spiritual power in them as in their Head from whom they received it and that the Church has now as clear a Charter for her Orders as the Apostles had for their Apostleships the great D r of us Gentiles is my Author God hath set in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers c. Prophets and Teachers that is Ministers as well as Apostles both fixed by Christ as necessary to carry on his spiritual building the Church Both ministring Spirits for the good of the Elect both his good Angels to summon from all quarters his chosen ones both usefull one to lay the foundation and the other to perfect the Structure I write not this to ingage my self in controversies I shall ever indeavour to decline them as well knowing they account nothing to Church peace or Religions purity but this I must profess that my judgement is flatly against entrenchment upon Church Offices let Christians imploy their Gifts soberly and instruct themselves and their Families thorowly and they will finde enough of that task If our Lord had laid the right of teaching in mens readinesses or their talkative abilities he would have appeared to those multitudes of people whom he in the course of his life and Ministry taught fed and cured of infirmities and from whom he had approbation to do and speak as never man did or spake it 's probable he might have found as nimble orators as pregnant gifted men in prayers as great measure of self-denial in some of the people as was in Peter James John or the rest of the Apostles But he appears to the Eleven met according to his appointment and them he culls out of the mass of the multitude to be the Churches Faetificators and he bids them as ver 19. Go ye therefore c. Ye an exclusive phrase as well as a personal not onely ye as well as others but ye only and above others ye as the grand Masters and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Church edification lay ye the foundation let all the after-building be according to your pattern from my prescript And teach all Nations These Metropolitans had large Diocesses Eleven to preach the world over this Commission must be largely taken not restrained to their personal but Doctrinal Visits not to their lives but to the perpetuity of their succession Ministerial not Apostolique for can we think those few could peragrate the Universe into many parts of which there was then no means of convoy or transport or that the hour-glass of their lives did not speed too fast for them to sow the seeds of grace in to so many several and various people and Nations or can the Apostles in any sense natural be said to continue to the end of the world till when Christ promises to be with them I tro no most of the Apostles died within the first Century If Christs promise was to continue them so long as he continued concurrence with them then must they not have seen death till the end of the world for so long he saith he will be with them And if they died so soon after and the world has yet lasted above 1500 yeers and how long further it may last God onely knows the promise must be understood to the orderly succession of the Ministry in all the ages of the Church who are to carry on the Apostles Office of teaching and exercising Discipline in it to the end of the world And this the Apostles understood and followed in their practice for though Judas fell from his Apostleship yet the Eleven by prayer and calling on God were directed specially to compleat their number by the admission of Matthias Act. 1. 15. remembring that Christ Jesus had a work to carry on in the world which required the full help he had in his life time assigned to it and though the Apostles admitted none into the priviledge of their order but upon special direction of the holy Ghost as in the forementioned case of Matthias and S t Paul whom the holy Ghost commanded to be separated as Ministers yet were Disciples Evangelists Bishops and Presbyters by them chosen and from them sent who in their succession carried on the work to this day and those learnedly bred and humbly submitting themselves to Church-approbation were accounted worthy to labour in the Word and Doctrine as Pastors able to feed the people with knowledge and understanding as the Prophet hath it Jer. 3. 15. yea and such men as S t Paul exhorts Timothy to be 2 Tim. 2. 15. Study saith he to shew thy self a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth The consideration of this made Ministers anciently very modest to offer themselves to this weighty charge and the Fathers and Bishops very precise and scrupulous in admitting any unto the care of souls but such as were well reputed and had great knowledge both in Humane and Divine Learning Saint Jerome plainly tells us that in his time the Church was so well served that it was hard to tell whether the Clergie excelled
yea to serve you hip and thigh yet can I not forbear mention of some of your mistakes by which you have caused many to wander out of the way and made your selves objects of reproach I know God has yet reserved in the Church many grave and Learned Presbyters who may justly be called Burning and shining Lights yet I conceive he hath trodden under foot many of the mighty men in the midst of her and if God hath heretofore suffered a spirit of delusion to be upon some of his Prophets of old for some time and upon some occasions and given some of his servants up to great fondnesses and caused the vision to cease to them If men of rare parts be permitted to lose themselves for a while in errors as did that famous Divine of Peru the Oracle of the American world of whom the Learned Sonne of a Learned Father tells us out of Acosta that he grew so wild in his Divinity that he averred his holiness to be granted him above Angels and Apostles that he was proffered hypostaticall union with God but refused it with sundry other such blasphemous passages Or to admire their own conceits above what they deserve and think they see more into the Cryptick parts of Theology then truly they do as did Napier the Lord of Marchiston terming his Book A plain discovery of the Revelation of S t John and Forbs another Scot his Book An exquisite Commentary upon the Revelation of S t John when the greatest Schollars with Castalio profess their non intelligo of the thousand part of that Book and with Junius Deodate and BP Andrews declare the mysteries in it are very hard reserved under Gods secret seal and beyond their reach yea those that wade deepest therein do but besmear themselves and lose credit by their confidence as did Arias Montanus the Spaniard and Johannes Brocardus who lost himself in the exposition of that Book who thought to finde Venice there and a Belgick Doctor in the Synod of Dort who thought to finde Grave Maurice there and M r Brightman who beleeved as saith mine Author not only to finde England but also his two friends Cecil and Walsingham there If I say such mistakes have betided Learned and good men why may not many of you have been mistaken also and why may it not become you soberly to confess as did the holy Prophet Thou hast deceived us O Lord and we are deceived 'T is worth O ye Ministers of the Lord 't is worth your tears to bewail and your serious thoughts to consider for there is great offence taken by many poor souls upon your violent courses against your fathers and brethren who were more wounded by your Sermons and Exhortations then from the secular severity of Magistrates who would have been lesse strict towards them had ye not sharpened the Instruments of their dispatch And therefore I beseech you hear my motion to you seconded by two men of your own Coat every way without exception the first my right worthy and meriting Friend D r Gawden whole words are these I desire both my self and others of my minde and profession may by an ingenious acknowledgement of our failings be fitted for God and mans absolution both in present and after ages that it may not be said that the Ministers of England erred greatly and were punished sharply yet knew not how to repent humbly and truly every one palliating their own errors and transferring the blame and guilt upon others when themselves were in some things more blameable then any men and merited in their own censures to be esteemed the chief of sinners Thus he The other to the same tune is Learned M r. Baxter who writing to the Ministers has this passage Have not some of you so led the way to seecet and open vilifying deriding contemning and aspersing your brethren that you even you have been the means of raising those calumnies you cannot allay Have you not had yet time and means enough to observe how God hath been offended with your unpeaceable proceedings seeking to suppress and subdue each other by force rather then to win each other by love and evidence of truth And in another place For my part saith he I daily look death in the face and live in a constant expectation of my change and therefore have the better assurance of being faithfull to my conscience and I must needs profess that when I look back upon my life I have more comfort in the least means that ever I used for the Churches peace then in all my most zealous contentious engagements Thus he And what can be more fully written to their honours and the shame of those whose high stomacks incubate their confessions But I know the wise in heart will consider this and for the rest I pity not reproach them Zacheus is as well to be imitated in restauration as in his taking from men their rights c. Thus much of the head of Goverment though I conceive it necessary to add somewhat concerning Ceremonies such I mean as are decent and not supernumerary I know this is a noli me tangere and perhaps may be born out of time But yet since my aime is to please no party by a base parasitism nor to provoke any by a sarcastique freedom I think fit to insinuate with all humility and submission my thoughts about Ceremonies which I look upon as flesh and skin to the soulary part of Religion as mounds and fences to the granaries of sound doctrine I know as life so Religion may be preserved by plain clothes and fewer rites as well as by richer and more numerous Therefore I offer my conceptions not as a peremptory dictator but as a petitory Monitor I confesse the primitive times had little of Ceremonies They were in Persecution and the Christians in them under restraints not owned by Magistrates nor in any polity for a great while Aliud fuit tunc tempus omnia suis temporibus aguntur saith S t Augustine but so soon as the condition of the Christian Church grew better and Emperours and great men shewed themselves propitious to her then prudence dictated somewhat more lustrous and suitable to the prosperous condition of the fixed Church which ought not to be considered less then the garden of God wherein are things of variety and virtuous delight as well as of absolute necessity And though I know all things in the Church should be done to edification yet do I not believe it unediâ—ving to have in the Church various expressions of Gods gifts to meâ— all which tending to the admiration of God call man to be edified in the high and holy contemplation of his infinite greatnesse who â—owithstanding his so liberal indulgence to man is yet compleat and inexhaust And therefore as Reverend Calvin well saies against Versipellis Whatever is pertinent to Beauty and Order we are not to account of humane
to 1 Eliz. c. 1. confirmed by 5 Eliz. 1. so Canon 1. Convocat Anno 1640. In this was maintained the antique Episcopacy as of Divine right and of annexed Prelacy as of civil foundation and Regall bounty the sacred Order of Presbytery and the validity of Ordination by Imposition of hands and holy separation to to the Ministry Thirdly This Church of England hath answered Antiquity in countenancing Truth and opposing Errour both in Doctrine and Manners It hath ever yielded stout Princes who have been warm and kindled in the Cause of God against errours of all sorts Prelates and Preachers have flourished in it whose breasts and brains by constant reading and meditation became Christs Libraries As S t Jerom saies of Nepotian They that consider but the expences and rewards given by Ed. the 6. to learned men sent for hither to assist in our refinement the grave Councill took in the declaring of the Christian faith and doctrine of the Sacraments for avoiding of diversity of opinions and for establishing of consent touching true Religion the zeal and open Protestation of many of our Prelates and Professorâ— against Toleration of Popery By name the not long since deceased Primate of England Archbishop Abbot M r Powell Chaplain to the then Bishop of London D r Suâ—liff Dean of Worcester D r Willes D r Hackwell and others Yea all the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland as appears by the Instrument read and pronounced by the then famous B. of Derry Doctor Downham before God and the whole Estate of Ireland at the Cathedrall of Dublin The proceedings of King James with the States of Holland in the case of Voâ—stius and against others in the Synod of Dort the Synod of this Nation in Anno 1640. Can. 3 4. against Socinianism yea and the judgements against Hamâ—unt 21 Eliz. Anno 1579. and Lewis 25 of the same Queen and Hacket with others together with the many excellent laws and prudent sanctions for promoting the honour of God by incouraging preaching praying and holy exercises by commanding sanctification of the Lords day and prohibiting any servile work therein with sundry other provisions of like nature They I say that well weigh these things cannot but commend our Churches well-grounded zeal I wish those that rend from her would consider what S t Jerom said to some in his time Segregas te cúm tuis vermulis novâ—m balneum aperis si te Angelus aliquis aut Apostolus rebaptizavit non infringo quod sequeris si vero in sinu meo natus si uberum meorum lacte nutritus adversum me gladium levas redde quod dedi esto si potes aliter Christianus Fourthly This Church of England hath had the blessing of God accompanying her in her waies of study and practise of general learning and holy preaching 'T were endless to enumerate the learned Bishops laborious Presbyters renowned Physicians accomplisht Lawyers florid Philologers and practicall Clerks bred up in her yea so great so considerable they were that the whole Body of the University of Oxford in An. 1603. published There were then more learned men in the Ministry in this Land then were to be found amongst all the Ministers of the Religion in France Flaunders Denmark Germany Poland Geneva Scotland or all Europe beside This touch concerning the piety of our Church No less her charity This Church was much at unity with it self few snarling or factious spiritati's in her all her notes were by the book her language Canonique things were so carried as offence to tender consciences might be as much as possible avoided I know there were ever and ever will be smaller differences in the Church and who can help it since God concludes them necessary that those who are approved might be made manifest c. I am not ignorant that many bitter invectives and hot ragings were currant between the Disciplinarian and Conformable party but yet I trust I may say they kept the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and were not alienated in affection each from other Nor were they wanting in works of Charity to the poor Gods poor and the Nations poor to both there are instances of charity since the Reformation and extrusion of the Pope I 'le begin with the renowned liberality of King Ed. the 6. who by the advice of that after famous Martyr D r Ridley then Lord Bishop of London and after his Sermon preached at the Court upon mercy and charity was moved to found the Hospitals of Christ for poor Orphans and of S t Thomas and S t Bartholmews for diseased people besides which he gave great relief to house-keepers at their own houses To perfect which charity the Bishop travelled greatly and brought the Citizens of London into the work To them and their successors for ever he gave the charge thereof and on them setled lands to the value of 100 l per annum with license to take lands in Mortmaine to the yearly value of 4000 Mark all which he setled not above two daies before his death At which time in the hearing of his Councill he uttered these words Lord God I yield thee most hearty thanks that thou hast given me life thus long to finish this work to the glory of thy Name The greatest and most noble Work that ever I read of done by One man and he a subject was that of the Memorable Gentleman M r Thomas Sutton the Princely Founder of the Charterhouse for the entertainment of youth and decayed Gentlemen who by maims in the Warres or other casualties had been ruined The provision there is so bounteous that it hath scarce a match to it in Europe the very house and appurtenances cost him to purchase 13000 l which he endowed with five Mannors in Essex two in Lincoln and eight in Wiltshire besides very many rich Pasture grounds of near 4000. Acres in that County Two in Cambridgeshire besides his Lands in Hackney Marsh and Tottenham in the County of Middlesex and with all and singular the Woods Reversions Presentations and Rights of him the said Thomas Sutton in any the aforesaid Mannors Over and above this he hath given great gifts to poor Towns to mend High-waies to loans of young men to set up trade with gratis To the Prisons to certain Colledges to make additions to his Hospital â—5000 lb and to the Treasury of the House to defend their right if need were 1000 lb and other Gifts he hath given right liberally Next The Royal Foundations of the Exchange for the meeting of persons of trade and business and Gresham College by S r Thomas Gresham in part of which poor people are lodged and provided for and in the rest Lecturers in all the Arts are allowed is a most memorable act of charity and bounty So also is that of S r Thomas White Lord Mayor of the City of London who first purchased Glocester Hall