Bishop who together with many others his reverend Brethren of the last edition and perdition now with God as Usher Hall Morton Davenant Prideaux Winniffe Westfeild Potter and others were as far from being drones and idle bellys Tyrants and oppressors Popish or antichristian as those are who are the most unjust calumniators of them and their Episcopal dignity which hath been so antient and universal in the Church of Christ and is so necessary for the polity and well being of any Church and was by themselves so abundantly deserved yea and worthily managed § I well know how provoking a thing it is to some mens eyes and eares to read or hear the praise of any man who is not of their party and faction There are many who have no patience to behold a Bishop carried to his grave in peace and laid in the bed of honour It is their Hell to see a pious Prelate conveyed to Heaven as it was Dives his regret to behold Lazarus in Abrahams bosom Some have sought to make the very name of Bishop a crime and to render the order degree and honor of it odious when the first is Scriptural and given to Christ first next to the Apostles and their cheif Successors the second is Ecclesiastical of Primitive Catholick and Apostolick use § There are that wish all Bishops out of the world with all their hearts but withal they would have them buried in silence and obscurity For they are scared to see them walk after they are dead as much as Herod was least John Baptist whom he had beheaded in a most wanton and frolick cruelty had been revived in Christ Some are afraid least while the names and merits of our excellent English Bishops remaine they might recover damages for all the losses they have sustained but in this I can secure their Excexcutors and Administrators that if they can give God and their own consciences a good account none of these good Bishops who are now departed in peace and have seen the Salvation of God will ever trouble them being got above the affronts injuries indignities and indigencies of this world § I know the formation of such a Statue as must resemble Bishop Brounrig so burning and shining a light must needs dash the unwelcome sparks and strictures of his well known worth in all Antiepiscopal faces just as an iron flaming from the forge doth when wrought on a firme anvel by a strong arm It is the miserie of many virtutem videant intabita bescantque relicta first to want worth in themselves next not to be able to bear it in another If envie against worthy Bishops is to be burst in pieces this piece will do it if sober moderate minds are reconcilable to venerable Episcopacy as I believe many nay most ministers and people now are this will further invite and confirm them to study the Churches peace and the honor of the Reformed Religion no less than the comfort of their own calling by returning to such temperament and patterns of Episcopal presidency as were to be seen in Bishop Brounrig and in many others of his order in England in which were as worthy Presbyters and as excellent Bishops as ever blest any Church since the Apostles daies for whom we have cause ever to bless the Divine benignity and mercy to this unworthy Nation § I have otherwhere erected Trophies and inscribed them to several Bishops of holy honorable and happy memory in England yea and I have demonstrated by a familiar and plain emblem the vast disproportions that are in all histories and successions of the Church to be seen between the goodly floridness and fruitful procerity of Christianity in all times when it was preserved protected and prospered by Episcopal eminency authority and unity which kept Bishops Presbyters and people in a blessed harmony compared to the modern shrubs of novelty variety discord which later ages have produced § Nor could I forbear upon this occasion to set forth the industry learning eloquence gravitie wisdom moderation patience unspottedness and holy perseverance of this excellent Bishop by way of pleniary opposition and full confutation of that Idleness illiterateness barrenness levity imprudence riggidness passionateness deformity and inconstancy with which some men have been overgrown as with a Manage or Leprosie in this age by their too great itching and scratching against all Episcopacy even till they fetched blood and brought such a festring tetter and sore upon us as is not easily healed § Wherein I have come short of Bishop Brounrigs worth your unanimous pleadings and potent eloquence full of reason and justice of learning and religion of order and policy may best supply my many defects indeed there was need of another Brounrig to have described him § Wherefore knowing my own disproportions I thought it the best way I could take to releive them first by seriously studying of this great pattern next by flying to your protection whose honor is now inseparable from this worthy Bishops no less than his ashes are from your antient Temple which since its first consecrating by Heraclius Patriarch of Jerusalem Anno Christ 1185. in the 31. of Hen. the 2. to this day had never any deposite of greater learning then your famous Selden or of greater piety and veneration than your and our reverend Brounrig who as little needs any Apology to be made for him as the age greatly needs repentance for treating him so much below his worth and myself a great Apology for my adventuring on so great a work § If it be necessary for me further to disarm or lessen that envy which possibly may befall me for the honour of this service which I have done to the name memory and merit of this worthy Bishop and in him to all good Bishops I am willing to conclude as St. Bernard doth in his modest and humble oratory upon a like occasion Dignus sane ille qui laudaretur sed indignus ego qui laudem if the fire of Antiepiscopal anger must still be fed with some fewel Parcite defunctis in me convertite ferrum let them spare the dead and fix their talons or teeth on me who am yet living who am content not to be commended by them or any malevolent Reader yet I am sure this reverend Bishop was most worthy to be commended by me and all good men which is then most effectually done by your selves O worthy Gentlemen and all equanimous Readers when his piety prudence zeal courage humility charity and judicious constancy in Church and State are most exactly imitated by your selves and others which is the just and serious ambition of Your very humble servant in Christ IOHN GAUDEN Ian. 1. 1659. ERRATA PAge 5. Line 8. read are for is p. 8 l.13.r audible p. 33. l. 12. add when yet p. 24. l. 4. by for lie p. 45. l. 1. r. Moenis p. 56. l. 20. Oracles for creeds p. 58. l. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p.
to be cloathed So our Saviour breathed on the Apostles Ioh. 20.21 22. when he said Receive the Holy Ghost So the Apostles used imposition of hands to denote their ordained Successors 1 Tim. 5.22 and 4.14 Heb. 6.6 which ceremony the Church of Christ in all ages hath observed in the successive Ordinations of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as one of the fundamentals of the Churches polity order and power Not that these outward Rites and Ceremonies are of the essence of the duty of the divine power but for the evidence of that order and authority which is necessary that there may be nothing dubious or doubtful or confused or upon bare presumptions and conjectures in the Churches sacred Ministry but such an authority as is both powerful in its efficacy and pregnant and signal in its derivation and execution that none might undertake the work who is not constituted to be a Workman nor any withdraw from it who is rightly furnished for so worthy a Work as the Apostle calls the work of a Bishop either the minores Episcopi which are orderly Presbyters or the majores Presbyteri which are the paternal Bishops We see Eliahs spirit falls on none but his annointed Successor The spirit and power follows the lawful succession nor was any so fit for the appointment and succession as Elisha a man indeed of plain breeding of a country yet honest way of living which is no prejudice or impediment when God intended to furnish him with Eliahs spirit 1 Kings 19.19 with extraordinary gifts and endowments with the power from on high as Christ did his fishermen when he made them fishers of men Luk. 5.10 This was in one hour more to their improvement than all Schools and Vniversities all literature and education all languages arts sciences and Scriptures But when these special gifts which were miraculous are not given nor needful in the ordinary ministration propagation and preservation of Religion there reading and study and diligence and education and Schools of the Prophets are the conduits of Gods good and perfect gifts conveyed by holy industry and prayer to those that study to shew themselves workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim 2 15. when once they are sanctified or set apart by God and the Church as here Elisha was In whom doubtless God and Eliah had seen something that expressed a very gracious and sincere heart by an humble holy Elisha's fitness to succeed Eliah and unblameable life We never finde that men of leud or scandalous lives are called to be Prophets of God or allowed to be made Preachers and Bishops of the Church wherein the antient Canons of the Affrican and other Churches were very strict and circumspect whom when and how they were ordained Bishops Presbyters or Deacons St. Paul requires that they should be not only unblameable but of good report even among the Heathens and unbeleivers as to matters of Justice Morality and common honesty as well as sound and orthodox in the Christian faith § Elisha discovers an excellent spirit and fit for a Prophet of God 2 Kings 2.2 4 6 not only by his individual adherency to Eliah three times piously disobeying his commands when he bade him leave him As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee The love of good company is a good sign of a good conscience a very good way to a good life and a ready means to make us partakers of spiritual gifts but further Elisha shews a most devout and divine soul in him fit to make a Prophet to succeed Eliah when first he doth not preposterously and presumptuously obtrude himself upon the holy Office and Succession but attends Gods call and the Prophets appointment of him Secondly When he sees it is the will of God and his father Eliah he doth not morosely refuse or deprecate and wave the imployment as some had done Moses and Jeremiah after though he knew it would be heavy and hot service in so bad times but submits to that onus no less than honos burthen as well as honor God imposeth on him Thirdly In order to his support and encouragement in the work he doth not covetously or ambitiously look to the preferment or honor or profit which might easily follow such an imployment especially if merchandise might be made of miracles as Gehazi designed and of the Gospel if Ministers turned Sucklers and Hucksters of the word of God as the Apostle taxeth some who were greedy of filthy lucre no but his earnest and only desire is for a double portion of Eliahs spirit to be upon him not that he might have more glory but be able to do more good 1 Kings 9. â—4 Iames 17 with more courage and constancy with less dejection and melancholy despondency than Eliah who was a man subject to like human passions and sometimes prone to fall not only into despiciencies and weariness of life but even to despair as to the cause of God and true Religion It is as Chrysologus calls it a commendable emulation to imitate the best men and a pious ambition to desire to excel them in spiritual gifts and graces which the Apostle St. Paul excites all to covet in their places which the more bright and excelling they are like the light of the sun the more they dispel all the vapors mists and fogs of humane passions or pride which by fits darken the souls of holy men I cannot here but own my desires The defective and dubious succession of Evangelical Ministers very deplorable and deplore the state of our times which forbids me almost to hope their accomplishment as to any orderly and meet succession of Evangelical Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Presbyters in this Church our Eliah's dayly drop away I do not see any care taken for Elisha's to suceed them in such compleat clear and indisputable ways of holy Ordination and Succession as may most avoid any shew of faction novelty and schism and be most uniform to the Antient Catholick primitive Apostolick and uniform pattern which never wanted in any setled Church either Presbyters to chuse and assist the Bishops or Bishops after the Apostles to try ordain oversee and govern with the Counsel of Presbyters and all other degrees and orders in the Church Darkness disputes divisions distractions dissatisfactions and confusions must needs follow that Army or City that knows not who are its Commission officers or lawful and authorised Magistrates so must it needs be in the Church when Christians know not who are their Fathers their Stewards their Shepherds their Bishops or their Presbyters There is nothing next the fundamentals of faith in which the Church should be more clear and confidently ascertained than in this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 10.15 Ordination and succession of their Evangelical Prophets for how shall they preach or rule unless they be lawfully sent and set over the houshold of faith Christs
reputation He was beyond any new feculent and intoxicating Must of yesterdays tunning like an excellent piece of sound good old wine always ripe and ready for all commers and tasters fully prepared for all essays and to all business of import § If he had once had any moderamen guidance of the chariots and horsemen of Israel the Clergy and Ministers of England it is not imaginable what his gravity goodness sincerity moderation oratory and piety would have done He would have been far enough from Phaethons fact and fate to have overthrown or set all on a light fire but this was a blessing that this Nation was not worthy of being ripe for wrath fitter for Soldiers to mow down than Schollars to plant or water it Other mens judgment of Bishop Brounrig before they plaid a new Presbyterian game § As to the esteem he had on all hands I my self have oft heard as others so Mr. John Pint who was of some kindred to this Bishop not only highly commend him but even glory and boast of him so did M. Marshal and those of his Juncto while conformity kept them warm till growing wanton planetary and excentrick from their former judgement and practice for many years they turned the Tables and withdrew their stakes these indeed for reasons of State playing against Bishops and Episcopacy while the other always like himself and as became Bp Brounrig for conscience sake stood constant to assert it as I know this reverend Prelate did ever to his last nor from any vain glory pertinacy pride or humor of revenge he was far remote from any such poisons but from eternal and immutable principles of Reason and Religion of order polity and peace in Church and State also from experience of the blessings by and under Episcopacy which this and other Churches had enjoyed and the either defects or miseries for want of it He hath sometime said to me That he held other reformed Churches which had not Bishops to have verum esse a true being of Ministers and other Christians but it was esse defectivum They had as wandering people esse naturale but not esse civile they might be Christs sheep but not so folded and under such shepherds as the Church had ever used from the Apostles days much insisting on that due veneration which posterity and particular Churches owe to the piety prudence and fidelity of the Catholick Church in Primitive times where Churches no more thrived or lived without Bishops as Presidents authoritative among and above Presbyters than Christians lived without their heads or hearts Yet was he out of love to his native Country His moderation in the matter of Episcapacy and pity for the Church of England passionately inclined to any fair and fraternal accommodations that humble orderly and worthy Presbyters whom he loved and treated as brethren might have all their due and Bishops no more than was their due by Scripture by primitive customs by the Laws of the land and by principles of order and true polity among all fraternities of men He had so great regard to the judgment Catholick custom of this and all Churches of Christ in all ages that he did not like some modern Sampsons think fit to break those cords or bands asunder at the pleasure of any men whatsoever meerly upon secular and civil designs for however he well knew that the Church depends on the Civil State for its secular peace and support yet he thought it but meet that a Christian State should in things Ecclesiastical conform to the primitive and Catholick customs of the Church Certainly he had been an admirable center for union His desire of an happy union between Bishops and Presbyters having a strong majestick attractiveness to win even adversaries to the love or reverence of him his demonstrations were so potent his perswasions so pathetick his designs so upright and just his deportment so fatherly and friendly that he was capable to rectifie even crooked pieces and to mollifie even stubborn perverss and peevish tempers if they did not with an high hand run quite counter and cross-grained to antiquity and reason either toward Rome or Amsterdam or Geneva to superstition to confusion or to popular and prevalent factions which he thought no less pernicious than novel to England by which some men not only seek to dictate very magisterially to this and all present Churches and States Christian but they dare to despise and condemn all antiquity even to the Primitive and Apostolical times as if no Christian Churches were ever well and rightly governed till after fifteen hundred years in all which times either long Anarchy it seems or sore Tyranny prevailed until the people of Geneva listing to reject their Prince and Bishop could not be composed to any order or polity Ecclesiastick but by the prudence of Mr. Calvin who t is evident did not constitute what Ecclesiastical polity he best liked but what the temper of the giddy people and distractions of times would bear for Mr. Calvin was known sufficientiy to be no enemy to Episcopal Presidency where Bishops would conform to the Doctrine and life of Christ § His great accomplishment for great affaires This reverend Bishop was indeed every way a most apt ample and accomplished person for great and publick affairs nor was he ever cut out for small work having so great and good a soul he was an excellent Schollar an admirahle Orator an acute Disputant a pathetick Preacher an unspotted Liver a prudent Governour full of judgment courage constancy and impartiality an useful good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a grave and great Divine a gracious and sincere Christian as well as venerable Bishop consciencious in all he did and humble with all his indowments not less full of eminent graces than excellent gifts indeed every way such a man and such a Bishop as no Christian Church in any age but ours nor ours in any age but this would have laid aside being a Preacher and Professor of the same reformed Faith and Confession of Doctrine nor would any times but ours have forced by popular storms and tempests a goodly ship fraught with such rich treasures of worth and wisdom which are seldom embarked or laden in one bottom to come aground and to lie still in some obscure yet scarce safe corners and creeks either for fear of Plebean and Military Hericano's or for want of fit sails and fair winds or tides to bring it forth to the commerce and enriching of the world in Learning Religion and a most imitable example Not that this grave and grand Personage His usefulness in his retirement and private life when thus forced to retire was useless to those that were worthy of him and knew how to value and use him either as a Bishop or as a Divine or a counsellor or a comforter or a Friend nor were any people more to be envied in my judgement than those that were happy as Solomons
off his earthly Tabernacle those exuviae mortalitatis which are due to the grave It was inter novissima vota one of his last desires that as this mantle of Eliah's soul was likely to fall among you so it might be deposited in your Temple or Sanctuary as an expectant of a blessed Resurrection § This request you not onely ambitiously entertained but honorable accomplished being loth that so great a Prophet should be buried among the graves of the meaner people though living he was almost levelled to them by some men I fear of more preposterous than pious spirits who seemed most impatient to own the vast differences which God and nature education and grace age and experience learning and industry besides our Lawes and the universal custome of the Churches of Christ had made among the Ministers of Christ for the good order and welfare both of Presbyters and people grudging that any civil respect or reward should be proportioned to their worth and usefulness in the Church § It became your learning Justice and wisdom to descern and own the advantages and discriminations that were so evident in this excellent Bishop who are not only Trustees and Guardians of his Urne and ashes but Conservators of his better self living Monuments of his excellent soul Admirers of his rare endowments Imitators of his worthy example All which were by him and now by me devoted to you above all men among whom he had his last hospitable and honorable reception You by a generous civility in an age pittifully and plebeianly Antiepiscopal durst invite own and entertain with publique respect such a Bishop whose eminent and unspotted worth every way made him so much more the object of some mens envy and despite as the highest Towers and trees are of the rage of tempests § For many have more patience towards Bishops and Ministers of his degree and perswasion who are less commendable or more culpable than to those whose eminency in goodness becoming Bishops and Divines makes their injurious malice wholy inexcusable Some spirits are most eager to cast that Episcopal salt on the ground which hath best savour in it and least of popish or popular fatuity that greater esteem may be had of their inspired arrogancy which by parity tends to Ataxy division and confusion as it is at this day Sunt tempora inquibus maximis virtutibus certissimum est exitium Tacitus observes that the worst times can least bear the best laws and worthiest persons whose exemplary vertues are the daily Satyrs and Sarcasmes of unreasonable men and manners § Some School-men think that the presence of a good Angel is an augment to the torture of Divels exasperating the regret and sense of their hell deformity and misery by the others beauty glory and felicity it is certaine Mat. 8.29 that the evil and unclean spirits could not smother the great terror even to torment which they had seising on them when the holy Majesty of the Messias though vailed under the cloud of humane nature and infirmities gave check to their Demoniac malice and mischeif Thus are the best ministers either Bishops or Presbyters men of the greatest learning piety and constancy most unwelcome as Micaiah to Ahab to men of high minds of heady passions of giddy spirits of impotent prejudices of popular principles and of licencious Practises who affect things of vulgar ambition and plebeian arbitrariness being unpatient of any thing authoritative and setled either by civil or ecclesiastick constitutions and customes in Church or State § Hence then is the Crown of your Honour more ponderous and illustrious That you so far owned and expressed your esteem of this learned and religious Bishop who as much deserved and enjoyed the applause of all good men as he patiently endured the envy and injuries of others Him you kindly invited Him you civilly received Him you highly honoured Him you greatly endeared to you notwithstanding the long and many diminutions yea disgraces he had suffered as a Bishop more to the detriment and dishonour of the publique than of his private comforts For it is certaine that every Christian Church and State in all ages hath wanted and ever will such excellent Bishops as wise and exemplary Goverours more than they can want publique rewards and incouragements but as it was said of Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Italy Aequiori animo sua pertulit damna quam alii sua lucra No man deplored the publique distractions more and his own depressions less than this wise and worthy Bishop he still enjoyed himself in an holy and happy tranquility as much nay much more than any of his destroyers whom he lived to see driven as chaffe too and fro with every wind till they were hurried to Democracy to Stratocracy to Anarchy both in Church and State § After many Tragedies which he had seen and suffered it was a great reviving to his age to find the noble respects of your honourable Society shining upon him and in him upon all worthy Bishops and Episcopal Divines You were desirous to be his Diocess to own him as a Father in God And as you deserved so I know he intended you the best recompences he was able to give you out of the rich treasury of his learned and pious soul if God had spared him life and health As you have the honour to be the eminent orbe and publique Sphear in which this great Star of learning and religion of Episcopal desert and dignity last moved both in and out of this world The Mount Nebo to which this Moses was to ascend and there to dye So it is but just you should have this Monument of singular honour and renown so long as the name and memory of Bishop Brounrig survives which I presume will be very long For he had omnia victura et sempiterna praeter corpusculum all things living and lasting to eternity except his body especially if I have in this work which is thus Dedicated to you done him and you the present and after age that right which I intended and of which I have thus given the world some account as to your particular merit towards him which was my second undertaking § My last work in this Epistle is to crave your patrociny for my vindication both against Romish partiality whose designe and interest is to decry and destroy all Reformed Bishops and also against those immoderate Antypathies which others have taken up against all presidential Episcopacy and Diocesan Bishops though never so reformed in Doctrine and Manners Yea and circumscribed by good Laws of Church and State Not that I fear the wit which is not overgreat or the spite which is not very small of those unreasonable Episcopomastix whose malice is as blind as it is bold against all Bishops good and bad precious and vile Popish and Primitive Episcopacy They shall do well to try their Teeth on this file to confute any one particular which I have averred of this excellent
but commendable and imitable in parallel occasions when they are real unwonted and wonderful in whch Good men do not deserve blame if they seem to forget themselves while they remember God a great and terrible Majesty it is meet for us to hear the voyce or rod of God and who hath appointed it Secondly 2 The matter or words of Elisha But passions alone and their expressions by crying out or any outward emotion disorder which signifie no more than interjections or broken and inarticulate sounds but as the leaves of the barren figtree without fruit Of rational and religious exstasies or as clouds without water these are neither the intents nor usual effects of divine manifestations and extraordinary impressions for however they may give some exstatick terror and amazement at first by the newness suddenness and wonder of them so as to discompose a while both Reason and Religions clearness yet they are not considerable further than God is discernable in them and glorified by them as that vision of Moses and Elias on the mount with Christ at his transfiguration Luke 9.8 9 10 which gave St. Peter such a present shake and astonishment that though he spake of making three Tabernacles and staying there yet he knew not what he said that is he did not well consider the unseasonableness and unreasonableness of his proposals yet afterward upon composed reflections and calmer thoughts 2 Pet. 1.17 he makes a very holy and excellent use of that vision to confirm the faith of Christians in Christ as in the beloved Son of God which voyce we heard saith he in the holy mount coming from the excellent glory of God the Father § Why Elisha thus cryed after Eliab Elisha's cry is not vox praeterea nihil a bare clamor insignificant as one scared and forehared but his wisdom remained with him he cries out as still importune and eager for the blessing of the doubled spirit that Eliah might see he saw him crying now at the instant of his departing which was the compact and agreement and he now laid claim to the accomplishment using this potent Charm of My Father my Father as begging his last blessing that he might be heir of his spirit Here we may observe Observ That divine manifestations or extasies in whatever way they are applied to our discomposure Oâ— holy transports and impressions still preserve the good man as to grace and the man as to right reason they do not speak either evilly or uncivilly or senselesly or unadvisedly with their lips whilst heart and senses divine Creeds or impulses do affect either they pray or praise God either they fear or rejoyce before him either they admire or adore and set forth the glory of God as Balaam himself did when he was in his Prophetick trances and was over-byassed by Gods Spirit against his own covetousness and ambition So the poor Shepherds at the Angelick Quire and Hymn Luke 2.9 10 11 12. visibly appearing and speaking audibly to them of Christs birth went away believing and rejoycing wondering and reporting the truth they first heard of and then found true in the birth of Christ It is an opinion worthy of the Mahometan blindness to fancy that mad men are inspired and see Angels when they rave and talk wildely Insani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes They are the madder of the two that do think these harsh strings to be touched with Gods holy Spirit § Of fanatick and frantick deliâ—ancies Certainly all extasies of delirancy and dotage that bring men first to strange fancies or to fits of quaking and convulsion then to vent either nonsense or blasphemous and scurrillous extravagancies these must be imputed as learned Dr. Merick Causabon observes either to natural distempers of disease and melancholy or to jugling affectations or to Diabolical delusions and possessions to which some of the Montanists Maniches Circumcellians and others of the Energumeni of old and of late have pretended who made first popular ostentations of special inspirations and correptions or raptures of the Spirit of God but afterwards the leaves and trash the toys and impertinencies they vented by words together with the pernicious extravagancies of their actions proclaimed as loud as the Devil of Mascon to all hearers and spectators that their troubles or tempests with the following dirt and mud arose not from the flowings or emanations of the pure spring of Gods Spirit but either from the Devils filthy injections or from the foul puddle of their own perturbed fancy and corrupt hearts or over-heated brains possibly intoxicated with the fumes of some new opinions and the gallant advantages they fancy to make by them § Of demoniac correptions It is an observation which St. Chrysostom makes that Demoniac correptions as those of the Sybils and other Oracles of old were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such shakings and transports as dispossessed the possessed for a time of themselves both as to their reason and senses but divine Oracles and inspirations greater or lesse like loud or still musick preserve the harmony of the soul though they make for a time quick and smart strokes upon the strings of holy mens constitutions understandings passions and affections The words of Eliah are as St. Godâ— Spirit suggests and utters only words of soberness and truth Acts 26.24 Acts 2.4 Paul refuted Festus his supposal of his madness words of soberness and truth they that should then have heard them as now we read them must confess that God was in him of a truth 1 Pet. 1.2 he spake which St. Peter gives as the character of a true Prophet and Apostle as the Spirit gave him utterance and guidance as intentive to the last object the fatal signal token of his obtaining the desired Spirit and blessing This affected him so highly as the ingemination imports twice crying out My Father My Father § Expressing first a genuine and great sense of his private love respect duty and honor to Eliah whose relation and merit was to him as a father so he had found him so he valued him so he shall misse him remaining without him as an Orphan in minority desolate and exposed to injuries as well as indiscretions We may observe the great ingenuity and humility of Elisha Observ 1 The filial respects of Elisha to Eliah as his Father though anointed a Prophet and thought meet to succeed Eliah though now of the same order yet he doth not disdain to count and call Eliah his father because first his elder secondly his better and ordainer thirdly his superiour in merits graces no less than in degree and authority in his power or place in the Church Thus the antient Christian people yea and the antient Christian Presbyters owned their Bishops as Fathers The father of the Christian Churches in a precedency and presidency of place degree dignity and authority Ecclesiastical Thus did St. Jerom write with
any Parents It was stoning to death Deut. 21.20 by which God would have the honor of the meanest Parents though poor and old weak and simple asserted against their sturdy and proud children while yet under their roof and discipline § Next these Princes and Magistrates have the name as of Gods and Lords so of Fathers Patres Patriae and of nursing Mothers after these the Priests and Prophets of old were called Fathers So the King of Israel returns the very same compellation to Elisha dying which he gives here to Eliah thus in the Gospel St. 1 Cor 4.15 Paul owns his merit so far though you have had many teachers or instructers yet not many Fathers for he had first begotten them to the faith by his preaching the Gospel to them so in the antient Christian-Churches though they had many Presbyters as Instructers or Consecrators yet the Bishops were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a special honor as Successors to the Apostles in paternal inspection and authority as begetting Sons to the Church by instruction and patres minores lesser Fathers or Presbyters by Ordination called Patres then also Patriarchs were Patres patrum which by way of gemination brought in the two first syllables Pa Pa not from the Syriack Abba transposed but from the first syllables of Pater and Patriarcha or Pater Patrum into the Church as before into the Imperial State from Pater Patriae to make up Papa which title the Bishop of Rome hath monopolized when of old it was given to other Patriarchs and Bishops § This is certain The duty as well as dâ—gnity implyed in the name Father God that communicates the name of Father to Magistrates in State or Pastors or Bishops in the Church doth withal teach and exact the duties imported in the name Father First Father in Magâ—stracy Both Governors in Church and State should delight rather in that exercise which is Paternal than despotical fatherly than imperious or Lordly much less tyrannick to remember they govern sons not slaves and for Gods glory not for their own profit pomp and pleasure their design and work must be to glorifie God and by doing good with a fatherly freedom and indulgence to deserve the love of others Although they cannot have it from ingrate and ungracious children yet they shall finde God a Father to them when they have carried themselves as Fathers to others Specially Church Governors which were of old in England Fathers in the ministry of the Church and in all Christian Churches Bishops as chief Fathers chosen by the Presbyters approved by the people and endowed with estate and civil honor by Christian Princes these as such must not in their greatest eminency affect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 5.3 to exercise dominion after the way of the secular sword and severity over Ministers or people but only as Fathers and Spiritual Lords for edification not destruction with gravity not austerity with meekness of wisdom not rigidness of passion yea and as to that civil Dominion which is consistent with spiritual jurisdiction when any are both Bishops and Soveraign Princes which may very well meet in one man for what hinders a Prince as George of Anhalt to be a Bishop or Preacher of his Gospel who is Prince and Priest of his Church here they must the more make the world to see they bear the double name of Father to their people such paternal Bishops we had heretofore in England and such indeed was this worthy Prelate and such Fathers we might have had still if that had not been fulfilled among us Filius ante diem c. some Sons are impatient not to antidate their Fathers death and destinies or longer to expect the reversion of their estates § It is true that double honor which the piety and munificence of Christian Princes and States had bestowed on Bishops as Fathers in chief and other Ministers of the same relation though a lower station in the Church both as to ample revenues and some secular jurisdiction or dignity to give them greater advantages to improve their spiritual and paternal authority more to the glory of God and the good of Christian people as to instruction protection and relief these ought not in any sort to leaven or overlay those condescending Graces and paternal tendernessse which are the greatest eminencies of any Church-man and which may with all pious industry humility charity and hospitality be maintained and exercised by them without any diminution of their civil dignity or ecclesiastical authority as was frequently evidenced by our learned religious hospitable charitable and honorable Bishops in England when they lived both as Lords and as Fathers governing and doing good § Of civil honour added the Fathers the Church So that it cannot be other than a most partial and sinister perverseness in men of evil eyes and envious hearts to fancy that no learning study devotion diligence and prudence in any Minister or Clergyman is capable to merit or enjoy either such honorable estates and salaries or such eminent places and dignities as Counsellors and Senators as Lords and Peers in Parliament to which we see many mens meer riches and worthless money or their lower abilities and industries in legal and civil affairs or their military hardiness and prowess may actually advance them yea and this in a civil intestine War where victory it self is sad and untriumphant yet we have lived to see many short-lived Gourd-Lords created in a chaos of times from very small principles or preexistency of birth estates breeding or worth and this in one day by a kinde of superfetation of honor and these to sit as right honorable ones in another House and to supply the vacant Seats of the antient Barons of England which were Peers in Parliament and consisted of Lords Spiritual and Temporal who had not either forfeited their honor or deserted their places and duties but were driven out by such power as they could not withstand § But not to touch that harsh string too hard we see the Bishops of England have had no great cause to envy those that cast them out as to that honor of having a place in Parliaments since from that time the Nation hath scarce enjoyed one good day nor themselves that fulness and freedom that honor and happiness which of old belonged to the majesty of English Parliaments § This is certain that the name of Lord did not as it ought not to make a venerable Bishop of the Church forget his former name and softer relation of a Father the first is now confined much to denote civil order and secular dignity but the second implies not only natural temporal and humane but spiritual divine and eternal endearments importing that plentitude of paternal love and goodness as is never to be exhausted scarce obstructed for what such unworthiness was ever in children which the benignity and bowels of a Father is not ready to forgive and
last to the advance of his interests who affects to be Pa-Pa the Father of Fathers the only Soveraign Bishop and spiritual Father by immediate and divine right over the Church yea and to have a Supremacy no less over things civil and temporal than Spiritual and Ecclesiastical though he is a little more modest remote and mediate in this claim since the scales are faln from the eyes of Christian Kings and Princes as well as reformed Bishops and Churches § This I may conlude That as men are sooner weary of their sufferings than their sins and more full of complaints what they feel than what they do so we shall never have case and remedy for one or pardon for the other till we do with humble devout and affectionate hearts return to that duty we owe to our heavenly Father and for his sake to those that on Earth are justly invested with the honor of that sacred name Certainly no Family can be happy that hath not some who enjoy the authority and exercise the benignity of a Father But I have done with Elisha's cry and expression as to his particular relation love and respect to Eliah My Father My Father Pater multis nominibus many wayes by many merits my most deserving and most endeared Father Secondly The publick import and influence that Eliah had to Church and State The second part of Elisha's words sets forth the publick import usefulness and concern which he imputes to his Father Eliah by calling him the chariot and horsmen of Israel This lamentation is an high Eulogy this crying out a loud commendation this deploration an exstatick admiration setting forth the value and esteem he had of Eliah as to the publick interest of Church and State both as to honor and safety In what sense Eliah is called the chariot and horses of Israel for Eliah was at once as a chariot of burthen war and of triumph he had born the burthen of the prophetick office of Gods service and of the Nations sins many years Further he had fought the good fight of Faith as a venturous Souldier and valiant Commander charging in the very face and front of the enemies of God and true Religion he had routed Baal and all his Forces 1 Kings 18.38 convinced by miracle the Court and Country that there was no dispute between the Lord Jehova and their imaginary Baal which was God he had resolutely withstood the anger of the King the rage of the Queen ventured life and all upon this adventure and had been more then Conqueror as to the miraculous pregnancy of that true Religion which he asserted and as to the invincibleness of his zeal 1 Kings 1. not fearing the Captains with their Companies but justly and sharply rebuking with fire from Heaven their imperious confidence who could not be safe till they gave better words and shewed such respect as became them to the Prophet of the Lord. § Sword men may swell rage Of ministers oppressed by Military power and menace the faithful Prophets and Ministers of Gods Church but it will be at last to their own ruine There is another fire to punish irreligious rudeness in the sons of terror beside that which Elisha's word fetched down from Heaven which will destoy the great and strong as towe Isa 31.3 the horse with the riders all that are injurious and impenitent oppressors of Gods Church and its Fathers in the Land of the living whose arms and horses are flesh and not spirit flashes for a moment but not lasting fires they may refine the Church and Ministers of it by the fire of their thorns but never consume them For these as Elisha here expresseth it not onely have horses and chariots of fire to defend them against their enemies over whom they shall at last be triumphant and ascend to Heaven having more for them than can be against them but themselves are among the Angels of the Lord 2 Kings 6.16 17. of his host and retinue yea of his life-guard among the chariots and horsmen of the Israel of God with whom Christ hath promised to be present to the end of the world Mar. 28.20 so that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against them Rev. 12. nor need they fear the Dragon and his Angels when they have Michael and his Angels to assist and second them These words as some Interpreters well observe are not spoken to describe the manner of Eliah's Angelick convoy but to set forth the personal merit and import of Eliah what a compleat Army and guard he was what strength and defence of true Religion of what use and consequence he was to the publick security and happiness The expression or words here are not The words import the me it of Eliahs person as at first appearance when the vision is set forth Ecce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 currus igneus equi ignei But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 currus Israel equites ejus not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuagint The chariot of Israel and horsemen thereof Eliah now seemed to him as a Conqueror sitting in his Chariot of State and triumph after he had by his holy valour been as the great honor and ornament so the defence and director of the Church and true Israel of God § The useful worth of Gods Prophets and Ministers The Prophets and Ministers of God are by other very honorable yet more soft and gentle Metaphors oft set forth in Scripture as Stewards and Shepherds and Ambassadors and Stars and ordinary Angels but here they are compared to the chieftains of the Lords host his principal Forces his chariots and horsemen These currus equitatus chariots and horsemen were in the antient Militia of the world especially among the more effeminate Nations The use of Chariots and horsemen and in hotter Countreys wich could less endure the heat of the climate and burden of Arms very usual in great number and in gallant equipage These as Vegetius Frontinus Elian and other antique Muster-masters set forth the Tacticks of these times were esteemed as the flos gentis exercitus the flower of a Nation the crown and glory of an Army as wings as shields as Bulwarks as the thunder and lightning of those dreadful clouds which Armies are for agility swiftness strength state and Majesty when the weakness of man Quantula enim sunt hominum corpuscula is grafted on the strength of an horse and his burden so discharged upon the horse or chariot which bears him that he may longer enjoy and be a better husband of his strength In equitatu vis salus exercitus summa belli constabat of old they laid all the stress of their battels on the horsemen and chariots so Xerzes so Darius in his repeated fights with Alexander the Great if once the horse were routed and broken the foot which were but as the tail and train of
it That nothing is more true than that Maxime both of piety and true policy Plus debet ecclesia Respublica Christiana ministris Ecclesiasticis quam militibus secularibus Soldiers may and oft do the work of Mahomet and Antichrist but good Preachers do always the work of Christ and of mens souls as to their inward and eternal interest yea as to outward and secular things of peace safety prosperity and victory over enemies Plus profuit Moses orans quam Josua pugnans Exod. 17.20 Moses did avail more by his praying than Joshua by his fighting Yea when the wrath of God is kindled and the fire of famine plague or war is broken out against any people these chariots and horsemen of Israel such as are powerful in prayer sober in their counsel exemplary in their lives are beyond imagination effectual to moderate remedy and remove divine vengeance When Noah Daniel and Job stand in the gap when Jacob wrestles with God Ezek. 14.14 when Moses holds his hands when Aaron and Phineas intervene between the living and the dead exciting the spirits of people to repentance and amendment to fasting and prayer when the Priests and Ministers of the Lord cry mightily to heaven Ioel. 2.17 and give the Lord no rest then is it that God spares and heals and returns to be gracious to the land § If men thought this they could not easily be so partial and unjust as to turn Tythes into Taxes to grudge the first as the Ministers portion and augment the second as the Souldiers pay good Ministers make a Nation need no Soldiery they are the murus aheneus brasen wall the fortification and ammunition that destroys sin the great enemy and traytor to all our happiness It is as true in the body Politique Qui militariter vivit misere vivit as that qui medice vivit misere vivit It is a sad life to live always medicinally and so to live always in a military necessity and danger besides the vaste charge that this Physick and these legions of Chyrurgeons stand any Nation in but grave godly peaceable and able Ministers are so far from being the lancets and leeches or the phlebotomists the exhausting pills and dispiriting purges that they are indeed the best cordials and restorative of the safety honors beauty strength peace health and happiness of any Church and State these help to put things into that posture of charity and peace that men may beat their swords into pruning-hooks Isai 2.4 Math. 4.3 and their armour into plowshears Once destroy or disband your able and orderly your learned and wel-armed Ministers Bishops and Presbyters or take away their order and good Government as such in united Councils and Synods withdraw their maintenance and support you will soon want their help and shall never want wars and enemies in Church and State as our own sad experience tells us both the Wars of disputation and of digladiation Nor are the Peditatus The Infantry or foot forces of the Church the Infantry or foot-soldiery of this spiritual Militia to be despised as useless I mean the meanest of the people that truly fear God and humbly keep their ranks and orders both in Church and State these also do stand in the gap these as Tertullian speaks quasi agmine facto ambiunt gratam Deo vim inferunt these besiege God as it were with great squadrons or companies offering an acceptable force to the Divine majesty both to disarm his Justice and to obtain his Mercy Ministers Magistrates and godly people together of one heart and of one mind in the Lord do make a royal and heavenly host a compleat Army both of horse and foot being under the same Generalissimo the Lord Jesus Christ who loves to see his Soldiers not stragling and freebooting in broken parties and scattered Conventicles but united and combined in great Congregations as the Assemblies of his Saints and Soldiers not of Sectaries and Schismaticks under such Commanders both greater and less as he hath ordained and commissioned § If these be the merits use and publick influence both as to Church and State of Gods Prophets and Christs Ministers in their several degrees and stations I wonder whence those principles of State policy arose and prevailed so far in this Nation as for some men with equal ignorance and injustice to endeavor to rout and cashier all these settled and reformed forces of the Ministry of England either stoping their pay or taking away the Antisignani principal Rulers and Leaders the Ecclesiastical colours and Commanders with the cheif Standerd-bearers of the Church for learning and prudence which practices and attempts have already put all the regiments of horse and foot to very great routs and disorders irrecoverable without a miracle of mercy Yea some by a strange kinde of fatuity and cruelty strive to gratifie the Papists Jesuits and others our enemies on all sides 2 Sam. 8.4 1 Chron. 18.4 by houghing all the best horses and burning or breaking in pieces all the best chariots of our Israel and the nurseries or chief conservatories of them the Universities just as David did those of the Amonites or the chariots and horses of the Sun that in after ages the Reformed Religion in England might have none but pittiful unarmed Pygmies to encounter with armed Goliahs of Rome Of routing and disbanding the Ministry § Many fear we are undermined and betrayed by the secret and sinister plottings of our Romish Adversaries who have so many Pioneers and Ingineers at work and are glad beyond measure to see the havoke made of Protestant Preachers of reformed Bishops and Churches which uniform and united are strong scattered are of no great efficacy though perhaps good Christians as a single Soldier signifies not much though valiant It may be good yarn or thread that is spun but t is not cloth till it be well woven together in one web it is not an Army but a rabble without Officers and Order nor is it a Church once take these Pastoral staves of beauty and bands away or deprive both Pastors and people of due order unity and government or rob the Rulers and Laborers of their setled pay and due enterainment 1 Cor. 9.7 that either they must go to war at their own charge for nought or live by forrage and free-quarter or depend upon the arbitrary contributions of people which is but a kind of gentle plundering or living upon not free-quarter but alms rather in a way very uncomfortable to ingenuous and able men no less than unacceptable to common people who set no great rate on their souls Certainly this new modelling of our spiritual Militia or Ministry being once effected what can be expected but a petty company of mendicant Preachers a black guard and forlorn-hope of ignorant and contemptible Freebooters men of little learning less estate no respect and least worth to deserve it to the great triumph joy and jubilee of all
false in their lives love not to be brought to the touchstone at their deaths Indeed some mens lives actions and memories are like their carkasses best when least stirred and most hidden from the sight of others Psal 112.6 But the just shall be had in everlasting remembrance and enjoy this reward even among men to have their name as a precious ointment poured out Eccles 7.1 Cant. 1.3 Mat. 26.12 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not preparatory to but contemporary with their interment or burial that so the sweet odor of it may not only accompany as the spices which Mary bought for Christ their coffin and corps but fill the whole house the place the Parish the Church or the Temple where they either lived or are buried FINIS MEMORIALS OF THE Life and Death OF BP. Brounrig I Have done right honorable and worthy with the Text read unto you I know your piety and civility now expect that I should if not largely comment yet fairly paraphrase or gloss upon that Text which lies dead before you the corps or earthly remains of that reverend Father in God Dr. Ralph Brounrig late Lord Bishop of Excester It were too great an injury to you at once to lose the honor of his presence and the happiness of his example § Of the honour of Bishops as Fathers and Lords I call him stilo veteri a Bishop a Father and a Lord without offence I hope to those old and new Lords Temporal who less able to endure the honor and society of Bishops as Lords Spiritual have by depluming these very much moulted their own feathers nor do I use these Titles by an arrogancy but a justice being due to him by the Laws of England as well as by ancient Ecclesiastick customs nor any way that I know forfeited by him or by other worthy Bishops who however hated and despised by the supercilious and popular spirits of some men whose neither mind nor manners exceeded such Bishops in any point of true nobleness and worth yet God forbid that one hair of their venerable heads should fall to the ground by my neglect of paying that filial love respect and honor which I have learned from the Apostles canon and pious antiquity as due to the Fathers of my Ministerial power and Ordination who have ruled well and labored too in the Word and Doctrine § Which tribute of double honor hath ever been willingly paid to learned grave and venerable Bishops of the Church not only by all humble and orderly Presbyters but by all sorts of Christian people great and small and most by the best even by Gentlemen Noblemen Princes Kings and Emperors who so soon as the Church had rest not only endowed many Bishops with ample revenues but added to them those civil honors which made them Peers to the Senatorian order or Patrician dignity ever since Constantine the great 's time which is now one thousand three hundred years A very long prescription and valid prejudice against modern levellings of the Clergie and Episcopacy § Not that I think it the part of a grave Divine or a reverend Bishop to affect secular honors and civil titles but rather to deserve them and to live above them as the primitive persecuted Bishops did who wanted not real honors among good Christians when they had no favour from Civil Laws and Secular Powers § But in a Nation professing to honor the Lord Jesus Christ I see no cause they should deny that double honor to the chiefest of his Servants Stewards Messengers Ministers and Embassadors which by the rule of Christ is due to them as in his stead Nor is it a great matter if those partake of mens civil and temporary honors who impart to them the way of true and eternal honor especially in a land of plenty and so of vulgar petulancy where no Authority in Church or State is to be preserved unless it be adorned with such ensigns of visible honor and estate as may not only keep off contempt and insolency but conciliate respect and reverence § I confess I cannot to this day understand by what partial policy and unreasonable reason of State in a Christian and civilised Nation the gate of Honor should be open to Gentlemen to Lawyers to Soldiers to Merchants to meer Mecanicks who by valour or industry or money or meer favour without any signal merit may ascend to the honor of Lords and of sitting in Parliament as Counsellors of publick and grand affairs of whom one day adventured to bring forth a whole house full and yet this gate of honor must be shut against all Divines and Church men only even then when they were worthy to be made Pastors and Bishops of the Church whose learning vertue wisdom and every way useful merit is no less contributive to the publick happiness than any other order of men yea perhaps more on which merit that Apostolical Canon for double honor is undoubtedly grounded which includes such Estates as may make them hospitable and such respect as owns them venerable as persons that are stiled Angels by the Spirit of God Rev. 2 and 3. being in a degree of heavenly service and holy office above ordinary mortals § But I shall not need further to assert the honor of this and such like Bishops against the vapor and vanity of some men who seeing Bishops lightned of their estates will it may be with more patience endure the empty title of Lords to be given them Certainly all just and ingenuous persons will abhor injurious indignities offered to deserving Bishops as a most undutiful sacriledge when they are satisfied of the many meritorious claims which they had to true honor by that eminency of worth which is in them whereof I could not have had in any age a more convincing and notable instance capable to to split in sunder as Daniel did Bel and the Dragon of Antiepiscopal envy than this excellent Bishop whose Funerals we this day celebrate § His publique conspicuiâ—ie and eminency A person of those ample and cubical dimensions for height of learning and Understanding for depth of Humility and Devotion for length of all Morality and Vertue and for breadth of all Humanity and Charity that it is hard for me to contract or epitomize him One cannot tell as Nazianzen speaks of Cyprian Or. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether the variety in allor the excellency in every vertue was most to be admired in him He is like an excellent Book full of remarkable sentences that hath nothing in it which is not worth noting He is as a fair large and fruitful field affording both freedom to expatiate and plenty to gather He is as a solid mass of gold pure precious and ponderous malleable also to a great extent as well as of great weight and worth Being always as Chrysostom speaks Innocentia infans virtute juvenis obedientia filius charitate frater gravitate pater
THE R R d FATHER IN GOD RALPH BROWNRIG L â— B â— OF EXETER Who Died aged 67. Decem 7th 1659. A SERMON PREACHED In the Temple-Chappel at the FUNERAL of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr. Brounrig LATE Lord Bishop of EXCETER who died Decem. 7. and was solemnly buried Decemb. 17. in that Chappel With an account of his LIFE and DEATH Both Dedicated to those Honorable Societies by the Author Dr. GAVDEN 2 Cor. 4.18 The things that are seen are temporal but the things that are not seen are eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Aliud est vivere moriturum cum Platone aliud mori victurum cum Paulo Hieron Ep. Nepot LONDON Printed by J. Best for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in S. Pauls Church-yard 1660. To the Reverend Dr. GAUDEN these present SIR YOur Sermon preached at the Funeral of the late eminent Bishop of Exceter hath been and is of that general acceptation that those that heard it or have heard of it do consent in their earnest desires of us to write unto you for its publishing The honor in it due to that learned Prelate as a memorial of him the great benefit which will arise to the Church both in the present age and future the seasonableness of the manifestation of his judgement in several subjects and the happy fruit which may be reaped by the Reader in the imitation of his exemplary life and pious conversation to Gods glory and the good of souls these do sufficiently of themselves bespeak your inclination to it But we do also make it our request that you will be pleased with all convenient speed to print it which as it will satisfie the expectation of your many other Friends so will it much oblige Your very affectionate Friends and Servants N. Bernard Edw. Young Tho. Buck. Grays-Inn Decâ—â—b 23. 1659. TO THE Honourable Societies OF THE TEMPLES HAving endeavored Honorable and worthy Gentlemen if not to adorn yet at least to do some right to the memory of the reverend and renowued Bishop Brounrig by those justa Parentalia praises which are most due to his accomplished worth for his holy obedience to the Word of God for his conformity to his blessed Saviour for his loyalty to Soveraign power for his love to his Country for his compassion to the Church for his zeal to the Reformed Religion for those sighs prayers and tears by which he encoutred the sins and miseries of this Nation for his exemplary merits to all that were or would be good and lastly for his particular favour towards me of which I am ambitious to express a most grateful sense Yet I finde still something of further duty and discretion incumbent on me which must be discharged by this Preface or Epistle to which your name is inscribed wherein first I am to justifie my own so large and liberal commendation of the Bishop Secondly I am to give an account of your particular merit as to this Dedication Thirdly I am to crave your patrociny for my vindication § For the first My own Veracity as to what I have wrote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without envy flattery or partiality of this excellent Bishop I believe I have the attestation of all good men who either personally knew or have been fully informed of his worth if they have eyes able to behold and bear the resplendency of all moral vertues in an excellent man of all intellectual abilites in an excellent Schollar of all sound Divinity in an excellent Divine of well chosen well handled well applied and well practised Texts in an excellent Preacher of all gravity prudence circumspectness and candor in an excellent Governour of sincere and operative graces in an excellent Christian Lastly of all these concurrent compleated and cumulated in an excellent Bishop who was indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in in all points of humane and divine perfections such as he should be § All ingenious persons who are not overgrown with the Antiepiscopal Jaundise who have not envious odious jealous and implacable eyes against all Bishops and most against the best will readily subscribe to what I have written Yea I know there is such a cloud of witnesses as forbids me solicitously to avow my own integrity and truth on either side § First For my self I am as much an enemy to flattery as a friend to civility Parasitisme differs as much from just and comely praise as Divels do from good Angels The first is black as hel the second beautiful as Heaven I fear nothing whatever I do or say or write more then that base fear which either prostitutes to servile adulation of vice or is overawed from just commendation of vertue even in Bishops I do profess with Greg. Naz. commending St. Cyprian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have spoken and written as to the verity and eminency of the patern nothing to any compliance or partiality I was not to dress up an Ulyssis with Homer or an Aeneas with Virgil after a poetick freedom and flourish of invention but to represent to the unworthy world a most worthy Bishop and to reproach the imprudence and ingratitude of the age by letting it see in this particular what an admirable Bishops it had extirpated what accomplished abilities it had suppressed what useful merits it had discountenanced not onely by not rewarding but by depriving of such rewards as they had both deserved and obtained by Gods blessing and the munificence of the Prince and Nation I was to set forth a chief Pastor of the Church conformable to Christs cross as well as serviceable to his flock having not only the crown of crucified affections but also crucrifying afflictions yea and of crucified vertues by the indignities of the world nay and of self crucifying graces too by his own humility for while he was eminent in all men that had eyes to see true worth yet in his own eyes he was nothing and Christ was all in all to him § Secondly They knew not Bishop Brounrig who knew not how far he was from either active or passive flattery As he abhorred both so he needed neither He was far above them being so full and overflowing with reall and solid worth that he was not capable as lanck bladders of any empty and aiery distentions he had as Plato saith of one Gorgias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A soul and life that wanted fictitious comendations no more then burnished gold or polished marble doth need any paint or colouring § Such deceitful decorations and spurious prayses are for their Sepulchers who affect to be reputed worthies when they have done nothing worthily who would be recounted for great Rabbies and Reformers when indeed they were but Abaddons and Apollyons of all things civil and sacred ambitious when dead to be called Patriots and Fathers of their countrey yea Saviours and Preservers of Religion when they have sought to sacrifice both fathers and children to the Molochs Chians and Remphans Idols and Images which they
fair pots then was God their more immediate Prophet and Instructer The Patriarchal succession in families in dreams and night-visions in ocular and sensible apparitions by day in audable and articular expressions or in mental illuminations So to Enoch and Noah and Abraham Isaac and Jacob yet so as the holy Fathers of those families were at once as successive Princes Priests and Prophets to their families taking care to teach their posterity children and servants the true fear and worship of God Gen. 18.19 which the Lord promiseth himself from Abraham Iosh 24.15 and Joshua promiseth to God for himself and his house Afterward After successioning eater Polities when the Church of God multiplied from a family to a grand Polity or community which required those Laws and constitutions both Civil and Ecclesiastical together with the execution of them by Princes Priests and prophets which might best preserve humane society within those bounds of honesty and holiness and within the enjoyment of those blessings which might answer all just and good desires either as to the enjoyment of their lives estates and liberties in peace or as to the serving of God and keeping communion with him in those holy ways of his worship and service which he required of them for their good as well as his own glory then was it that the Lord either by special designation or by setled succession furnished his Church with such Princes Judges Priests and Prophets as he saw necessary for them Yea Ecclesiastical order and succeâ—â—â—on most necessary whatever scambling and confusion in Civil and Regular Magistracy mens ambition brought on the state of the Jews yet the Church order and polity of Religion was so fixed in Aarons family as to the constant Primacy of the Priesthood and in the Tribe of Levi as to the inferior offices and services that it continued many hundred of years after their Kings and after their Captivity inviolated among the Jews nor was that sacred Order and Succession quite depraved in Israel till a most unreasonable and detestable reason of state policy laying aside all true sense and conscience of piety 1 King 12.31 set up golden calves for gods to the silly people and consecrated the meanest of the people to serve them Meet Priests indeed for such bruitish gods When the great Prophet Moses was to leave the world Moses his care for succession yet he leaves the Church this legacy of comfort as to the divine care and providence for a succession The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him you shall hearken which as it was most eminently and consummatively fulfilled in our blessed Saviour as Philip tells Nathanael Iohn 1.45 Acts 3.22 Acts 7.37 and as St. Peter with St. Stephen convince the Jewes who was the great inspirer and compleater of the Prophets and their Prophesies so it was also fulfilled in those intermediate Prophets which followed Moses even to John Baptist whom God sent successively to preserve reform and restore true Religion in the Church The Priestly Prophetick Ministerial successive authority as necessary as magistratick and Ministerial Office is not less necessary in the Church than the Princely and Magistratick power is in the State unless men judge their souls eternal interests less precious than those of their bodies and estates Yea for the most part Gods Providence hath so distinguished them that when there were the best Princes yet there were added to them eminent Prophets besides the constant Priests as in Davids time where Samuel Gad and Nathan were imployed And here in the great revolt and sad Apostacy of Israel from Gods and Davids house yet the Lord is not wanting to send an Eliah and when he is to be gone order is taken for the appointing Elisha to succeed him the Ordinances of heaven 1 Kings 16 1â—.1â— of night and day summer and winter of Spring and Harvest Gen. 8 22. are not more necessary by the successive motions of Sun and Moon and Stars than those Ministers and Ministrations are by which true Religion and an autoritative order in the Church are maintained in present and duly derived to posterity Hence our blessed Saviour Our blessed Saviours care of succession in the Church Iohn 20.20 the great Minister and Fulfiller of all righteousness before his ascention took care for the Apostolick confirmation Consecration Mission and Commission as Stewards and Ambassadors in his stead to be sent by him as he was by his Father The Apostles also before their departure had the like care as is evident in the history of the Acts and in the charge that St. Paul gives to Timothy and Titus within their respective Provinces and Diocesses to commit the Evangelical spiritual power and Ministry as a sacred depositum to faithful and able men that may as Bishops and Pastors 2 Tim. 2.2 as Presbyters and Teachers both instruct and rule the Church or flock of Christ committed to their charge according to the several proportions and combinations of those Ecclesiastical Societies over which not only many Teachers were ordained but also some one Father or Angel was constituted and owned by the Spirit of Christ as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 2 3 chap. chief President over them the head or centre of order and union the principal Conservator and Dispenser of all Ecclesiastical power and authority which Irenaeus Tertullian St. Cyprian Origen and all the Antients counted Successiones successores Apostolorum having the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gift and character in ordinary which the Apostles had either as Presbyters or Presidents in the Church § Succession signalised by some visible ceremony That this might be done the more signally and conspicuously so as all might take notice of the solemn trausaction in a business of so sacred and great importance to the Church there was not onely due trial to be made of mens abilities inward and outward for such undertakings but they were to be invested with the Ecclesiastical power and admitted to the exercise of those sacred Ministrations by some evident ceremonies as tokens of Gods Ordination the Clergies approbation and the peoples acceptance of them So little is God an enemy as some have strongly fancied to all decent ceremonies in Religion which are shadows indeed of good things with whose substance they well agree We see that not only Sacramental mysteries even in the Gospel as well as under the Law are set forth by them and cloathed all over with them as to the outside or sign but also the Ordination of Priests Prophets and all Church Ministers ordinary and extraordinary have been adorned by them Elisha is first annointed by Eliah â— Kings 19.19 after this Eliah casts his mantle upon him even that mantle which afterward fell from Eliah ascending and was as an emblem of his spirit with which Elisha was
family and how shall others as Sons pay respect to them as Fathers if they either doubt or deny that relation Iohn 10.1 If every one may affect new ways by-paths and postern doors or climb over the wall or use force and faction to consecrate himself or any other a Minister in the Church according as himself or his party in every family conventicle or congregation fancies best we may look for good store of Jerobohams calves and Idols as well as Priests such as vulgar folly faction and presumption lists to set up to themselves § But of Eliahs and Elisha's few or none may be expected when once Ordinations are various novel defective mutually destructive spurious and so dubious as no learned judicious and upright-hearted Schollars or other sincere Christians can in conscience or prudence be satisfied with them either as to holy duties to be done by them or as to authority inherent in them or the succession derivable from them or lastly as to the reverence and honor to be paid to them § Certainly there is but one regular authentick Catholick and compleat way of Ecclesiastical Ordination and Succession as this reverend Bishop sometimes expressed his sense to me What that was by Bishops and Presbyters no man can be ignorant that is not so willingly for the light of Scripture and Ecclesiastical history is clear as the sun at noon day and although he with others of our learned English Bishops thought it may be venial or tolerable in some cases of persecution necessity and civil obstructions which either Prince or people may sometime put on the Church for some Christian Pastors and people to divert to new and by-ways such as they are permitted to walk in yet they desire and approve the better and more excellent way yet there is no wisdom of Reason or Religion for any Church to forsake the good old way Ier. 6.16 when they might happily walk in it onely to give themselves the popular and pittiful pleasure of diverting to such odd broken ways as possibly may with much scrambling scratching and difficulty bring them at last to the same journeys end with the other yet so as through briars and thorns But I have done with the person of Elisha as here nominated and designed for Eliah's Successor Secondly I come to the Vision in which we are to consider 1 The object What he saw The strangefiery apparition of Eliah's assumption 2 The act or seeing The Object It That is all that strange apparition the wonderful and supernatural manner of Eliah's assumption by a fiery chariot and horses of fire which did gently slide under him and so took him up that he appeared tanquam auriga lucis as sitting in the chariot driving and managing the horses of it like an holy Phaeton not fabulous and fictitious but real and visible to Elisha's bodily eyes All which heavenly pomp and parada was no other but a manifestation of the glory of God by such Angelick ministratious in the way of fire figured like chariot and horses The Observation in general is obvious from Scripture histories Observ 1 Of Gods glory manifested by fire How God is pleased to make his special presence and glory appear to men by way of fire Exod. 3.2 either First immediately and in mercy so to Moses in the bush which was on fire yet consumed not an emblem First How God oft chuseth to reveal himself not in the ways of worldly wisdom and power or greatness as in tall cedars and strong okes but in shrubs and bushes weak and contemptible means Secondly Of the state of the Church in this world which may seem to be all on fire by persecution as the bush or three children in the furnace yet is not burned or wasted thereby Thirdly To shew there is most of Gods presence where the soul is most inflamed with the love of God and zeal for his glory which is a fire not consumptive but refining not predaticious to any but propitious to all true Saints destructive to nothing but our sins and corruptions which are our dross Or secondly Mediately Angels appear in fire Psalm 104.4 Heb. 27 God makes use of the Angels as Ministring Spirits in the similitude of flaming fire In both to shew not only that spiritual purity activity and potency which is in God and proportionably in the holy Angels but also how terrible he can be and will be at last to the wicked men and Angels too to whom he will be as a consuming fire the breath of the Lords anger kindling the fire of Tophet with everlasting burnings which none can quench From the renown of such fiery apparitions and Gods appointment of holy fire Levit. 6.12 5.24 which first came down from heaven to be ever kept alive on his altar The Heathens had those high fancies of fire That it was a god and the Conqueror of all things so worshipped by the Caldeans and venerated by the Romans which their Vestal virgins were to keep unextinguished that they might have this emblem at least of their gods and their souls immortality Secondly Observ 2 We may observe the different dispensations of Gods power and pleasure in the way of fire The different events of Gods fiery dispensations 1 Penal either in judgement or mercy for good and evil for preservation or destruction His Justice rains hell fire from heaven upon the impudent and preposterous sinners of Sodom and Gomorah Gen. 19.24 unnatural lusts are punished with preternatural fires He destroys Nadab and Abihu by fire for offering with culinary Nâ—mb 3.4 and 10.3 common or strange and unconsecrated sire their incense and sacrifice to shew that he will be sanctified in all that draw near to serve him which they must do after his own prescriptions not mans inventions in the matter essence and substance of his worship He blasteth some of Jobs flocks with fire or lightning Iob 1.16 which came from the aerial or first heaven by Gods permission of the devils impression He sends fire from heaven at Eliah's word upon those surly and supercilious Captains with their Fifties who carried themselves to the Prophet Eliah with such pride rudeness and irreverence 2 Kings 1. as was a reproach to the God of Eliah and that Prophetick authority with which he was invested Yet the same God as we have shewed began his first familiarity of talking with Moses face to face by the vision of fire in the bush 2 Propitious He after continued the visible sign of his presence and perfection to the Jews in the wilderness by a pillar of fire shining in the night Exod. 40.38 So to Prophets Ezek. 1.4 and â— 2 and other holy men as to Manoah as to Eliah God manifested his acceptance of their persons sacrifices and prayers by fiery apparitions of his glory yet in a way of mercy So here again in Eliah a fiery messenger is sent to take him out
when he ordered his designation to the Crown to be signified by setting him on his own Mule 1 sther 6.8 or as Haman fancied himself in Ahasuerus's when he chose the Royal Robe and Horse and Crown to express to the people whom the King delighted to honor There is an Embassie of Angels sent a Troop of the host of heaven Gods immediate guard or a triumphant chariot and horses of fire such as the divine Majesty is pleased to own and use for the special Harbingers Convoys and Attendants of his glory these must as ministring spirits wait upon Eliah as a person greatly beloved of God and now to be highly honored beyond all mortals at his decessit which must not be by the common way of death but of such a transport and change to glory as might be to others a presage and preludium as of the ascention of Christ so of the general resurrection when Christ shall appear in flaming fire to take vengeance of ungodly men that obey not the Gospel 1 Thess 1.17 2 Thess 2.8 but to make a general assumption of the godly to himself first into the air then into the Empyrean or highest heaven of glory to be ever with the Lord Psal 116 1◠so precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints especially of his Prophets and faithful Ministers and such honor in time shall they all have in their several degrees and proportions how scurvily and contemptuously soever the world notes them for a time as it did the very Son of God who was first crucified and then ascended to glory not in Eliah's fiery chariot but in a cool and refreshing cloud to shew the different spirit which Christians under the Gospel Acts 1.19 as followers of Christ must be of from that of Eliah under the Law Luke 9.54 55 as our Saviour told his Disciples when they urged the practice of Eliah for a president to justifie their hot spirits thirsting for fire from heaven to execute their revenge which he tells us is now to be done by Christians with prayers and patience with a quiet departure without any more ado than shaking the dust off their feet as a witness against those that refused to entertain them and their doctrine Luke 2.1 As Christ came into the world in a time of profound peace when Augustus had shut the gates of Janus so he continued all his life and at last left the world without any perturbation of civil affairs But it is time for me to wind up the contemplation of Eliah's fiery rapture Vse Eliah's rapture not to be envied with some useful meditation which teacheth every good Christian to admire indeed but not to envy or repine at this so glorious and miraculous assumption As we say of thunderbolts Poena ad unum terror ad omnes The stroke may fall on but one yet the terror upon many so are these peculiar indulgencies of God to one holy man the ground of general comfort to all If we have the same graces we shall attain to the same glory alia via but ad eandem patriam by another road but to the same home and house of our heavenly Father Iames 2.22 Abraham was called the friend of God so is every one that is a true son of faithful Abraham though kept at greater distance and used with less familiarity Noah and Lot the three children and Daniel had signal preservations so mayst thou proportionably expect Matth. 17.5 and have if thou hast the same God Peter James and John saw the transfiguration of Christ but all the Apostles and all true believers rejoyce in that news as a pledg and glimpse of glory whereof they shall at last be all spectators and partakers 2 Cor. 12.2 St. Paul had his high rapture to the third heaven so hath every good Christian whose soul is no stranger to the holy extasies of humble judicious fervent and devout affections Many Martyrs had their fiery chariots and horses which carried their souls by flames of fagots to heaven The parallels to Eliah's rapture as that of holy Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna and Angel of that Church when St. John wrote the Spirits letter Rev. 2.8 whose body the modest fire would not touch while his soul was in it the executioner was forced first to kill him before he could burn him Ardor affectuum claritas fidei charitatis flamma candentes gratiae certitudo gloriae hi sunt ignei currus equitatus as St. Bernard The holy fervor of our love to God and our charity to others our unfeigned faith and refined graces our earnest desires and blessed hopes to depart and be with Christ Phii. 1.23 these are the fiery chariots and horses of every sincere Christian Daily reading meditating on the Word of God with holy ejaculations of our spirits to God and warm inspirations of Gods Spirit in us these as St. Jerom commends to a Lady this circle of devotion are as the chariot and horses of fire to carry thee up to heaven yet alive and in the body these are as Jacobs Angels ascending and descending there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sacred feavers or holy calentures in which every good Christian must take care to live that so he may die in them It is to be wished by every good Christian ut nec vivat nec moriatur sine febre take heed of earthy lukewarm cold and dull tempers living lest when we die our hearts be as Nabals or Achitophels dead desponding or desperate within us No chariots or horses of fire no good Angels no inspirings or aspirings can be looked for at last by those that only mind things earthly sensual and devillish The antient word of the Church was Sursum corda Col. 3.2 and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lift up your hearts look upward set your affections on things that are above where Christ is he will give his Angels charge of thee to be thy conducters to heaven as here they were of Eliahs for where the soul is Luke 16. there is the man as the historical parable of Lazarus and Dives imports when one is said to be in Abrahams bosom and the other in hell long before their bodies were raised Carry God while thou livest in the chariot of thy zealous soul and thou shalt not want his chariot and horses of fire to attend thee when thou diest Secondly The act or intuition Having thus seen the Object we are now to consider Elisha's Vision as to the act or intuition it self He saw it he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eye-witness by a real view and ocular perception not by another relation or any imagination or inward apparition to the fancy only This is here so emphatically set down not only to assure the truth of the transaction but because it was the only condition upon which Elisha's having a double portion of Eliahs spirit did depend Vers 10 It shews
respect to St. Austin as a Bishop and his junior in age yet so far his superiour although St. Austins humility indeed so far Complements with and cools the others heat as to say that although Bishop Austins precedency before Presbyter Jerom was by Ecclesiastical use and custom very old Apostolical and universal yet as to the truth of personal worth and eminency of merit Presbyter Jerom was above Bishop Austin Had Bishops and Presbyters in our days carried this equanimity to each other it had been happyer for both § But if Presbyters were clearly of the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adequate in their holy Orders and Ecclesiastical Power as to the main which is not easily proved nor was of old so judged by the Fathers for even St. Jerom excepts Ordination as a peculiar belonging to Bishops both in fact and in right for ought appears as Successors to the twelve Apostles who were above the Seventy in point of precedency inspection power and jurisdiction yet the fancy of equality as to Bishops and Presbyters was chiefly fomented by some latter Schoolmen who urged this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Bishops and Presbyters to advance the Popes throne and Soveraignty above Bishops from whose authority Monks and Friars coverted exemption as immediately under the Popes visitation who commonly were old men far off and had dim eyes to see the Monastick disorders Besides the Parasites of the Pope were also to magnifie the later device of Transubstantiating and that Mass power of all Presbyters so high as none might or could exceed it if true yet still the eminent degree and exercise of Bishops as to the Polity and government of the Church both for general inspection and chief jurisdiction for Ordination and Discipline for presidency as well as precedency authority as order was never of old questioned much less denied as Antichristian being as rational and suitable to Religious Order yea and as Christian or Evangelical as for one to be Provost or Master of a Colledge over many Fellows possibly as good men and Schollars as himself or for some Commanders to be over fellow-Souldiers or for some Citizens to be Magistrates over other Freemen or for Parents to own their authority or superiority over their children when they are men and women of the same nature and stature with themselves The levelling of mankinde throughout in State and Church Of levellings in Church and State in Civil Military and Ecclesiastical power because in some things they are equal is but a policy and project of the great author of confusion 1 Cor. 14.33 the God of order appointed of old and approves for ever different degrees ranks and stations in his Church according as men are fitted by him with gifts for government in such ways of meet superiority and subordination as preserves order and deserves respect Exod. 6.25 as the Priests of Aarons family so of the whole Tribe of Levi had their ranks and orders their duties degrees and distances there were Heads and Fathers and chief Fathers of their Tribes and Families as well as of others which the Septuagint render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dâ—â— â— 15 Bishops or Overseers of them and this not onely in age and primogeniture by nature and years but officio praelatura by office and authoritative power so to oversee not as a bare Spectator but as Shepherds or Masters of Assemblies 1 Tim. 5.19 Tit. 2.15 who did rebuke with all Authority yea and reject in cases of demerit And then was it also by St Pauls example and prescription to Timothy and others among the Christian Churches who in the worst times never wanted their good Bishops nor in good time that love honor and obedient regard to them as to their Fathers in the Lord when they were worthy of that name and office The name Father is sanctum suave nomen Of the Name Father its highest sense belongs to God in comparison of whom none is to be called or counted a Father as Christ spake Nemo tam pater Mat. 3.23 nemo tam pius as Tertullian Ambitiosius Patris nomen quam Domini heri exigit God hath an ambition rather to be called Father by us and so treated than Lord and Master Therefore our Saviour begins his and our prayer with Our Father This venerable Name breatheth all comforts this mindeth us of and bindeth us to all filial love this racks us from the sowre dregs of servile fear 1 Iohn 4.18 he that can say this proem or first word Our Father with true faith to God and charity to man need not doubt to go on in that perfect prayer Since men lost their charity to others and their filial regard to God and their reverence to their parents they have avoided to use the saying or praying of the Lords prayer as afraid and ashamed of it because it binds them at the very first word to their good behaviour by the bands of piety to God in Father and of charity to men in Our which no factions or schisms no sinister interests and ends no Pharisaick pride or singularity can endure no more than Witches can the Creed or the unruly Demoniack the presence of Christ § Yet no man is or can be further happy than he hath and owns God for his Father 1. in creation and providence Father of the whole Family in heaven and earth Eph. 5.3 2. In Christ as sending his Son into the world a Redeemer for all men without exception in the value merit and offer of his sufferings and in that conditionate capacity into which every one is by Christ put upon his faith and repentance to be saved and owned as the brother of Christ and Son of God 3. And lastly God is a Father by those special effects of regeneration and grace which follow that immortal seed of his Word and motions of his Spirit where they fall upon broken and contrite spirits not upon hard hearts Mat. 13.5 or fallow and stony ground which refuse the reception and damp the operation of those holy means that are both able and apt to work the life of faith repentance and love in a reasonable soul This highest account of the name Father is only to shew how much it imports of honor love merit and duty being a branch rooted in God and from his goodness springing to his creatures § Why God communicates to men the name of Father But this relative name of Father is none of the incommunicable ones God is pleased to lend the graving or character of it to mankinde and to stamp this paternal honor and Majesty upon some men in natural civil and ecclesiastical respects Hence the first command of the Second Table or the last of the first is that caution to honor father and mother a duty of piety and religion as well as of morality civility humanity and polity God is concerned as despised and injured in any indignities offered to
overcome yea and to deplore the justest miseries which fall upon them 2 Sam. 18.33 as David did his Son Absoloms death when by a most popular and prodigious rebellion he sought to take away both his Kingdom and his life Of Bishops as Fathers if not Lords § If we may not enjoy Bishops as Lords in the State I wish we might enjoy them as Fathers in the Church if they be truly venerable for their vertues and graces they will not much want honorable Titles nor that real love and value which all good Christians and ingenuous persons are more ambitious to pay to real worth and useful merits for Quis tam perditus ut dubitet Senecam praeferre Neroni Si libera dentur suffragia than to supercilious vanity empty formality and an idle kind of pompous luxury which are but the rust and excrements of hydropick and sick estates or of diseased and dwindling honors The eased and dwindling honors The name of Lord hath more of vulgar and secular pomp but the name of Father more of spiritual power and divine authority the first hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Gods name or in Christs stead for the good of the Church § To wind up the thread of this discourse no doubt Elisha's humility and obsequiousness to Eliah was such as he would willingly have called him his Lord and Master as the Sons of the Prophets call him but he rather chose the name of My Father as more suitable to Eliahs comportment both to him and to all the Church of God First Because in this one name Magistrates and Ministers Princes Bishops Priests and Prophets were as in the fairest letter or print to read or learn their duty in their dignity and so to be more sollicitous to do what becomes them than to exact the respects of others which best follow where they are best deserved as water flows easiest when the channel is clearest and a little descendent or falling Paternum est docendi munus The Officers of Fathers c. the duty of Fathers is to teach and educate their children that they may be Fathers of souls as well as of bodies to feed and provide for to defend and protect to be bountiful and munificent to give good counsel and example which are the best pillars to bear up authority to reprove and correct yet with love and moderation having always an intercessor in their own brests Gen. 27.4 Lastly Father are to bless their children in the name of the Lord and to transmit or deliver that by their hands and mouths to their children which is truly Gods act and deed but these are to God as the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal is to the King the King grants but the other legally conveys or passeth the blessing § Secondly The duty of Sons Such Sons and Subjects in Church and State as well as nature that hope with Elisha to be the inheritors of their Fathers blessing and Gods by that means will from this name see their happiness in that divine indulgence which hath set over them in Church or State not Pharoahs and Nero's hard Masters and severe Lords but tender and compasvionate Fathers whose power and authority they will justly value rejoycing in the Fathers superiority and their own subjection humbly desiring and defending their paternal care benediction and comprecation for them and also dreading their sad imprecations or deserved curses for oft as Plato observes the divine hand sets to the seal and says fiat to Parental curses as well as blessings § As the lives of all Fathers natural civil and spiritual ought to be a Commentary on the name and a compendium of the divine goodness that every thing they do or say may have a relish and tincture or politure and guilding of this sacred sweet and divine name so ought inferiors to learn their duty also by it to reverence those for Gods sake who bear the Name and Office of Fathers in Church and State to love and honor them if worthy to pray for them and bear with them if bad and froward Vt parentum sic principum ferenda sunt ingenia saith Tacitus Parents are forbidden to provoke causelesly their children to wrath Eph. 6.4 much more ought children to avoid provoking their Parents rather wink at hide conceal excuse palliate and cover as Noah's more pious and blessed Sons did Cen. 9.23 a Fathers nakedness and infirmity as Constantine the Great professed he was ready to do the failing of any Bishop or Churchman Be not curious to be conscious to their faults nor forward to complain of them never reproach them rudely but intimate thy sense to them with respect and reverence We read of some parents by a barbarous superstition making their children pass through the fire to Moloch but we never read of children casting their parents alive into the fire as an acceptable sacrifice to any gods Had we all done our duties in England on all hands we had had I believe better dayes and not onely our tranquillity civil peace and plenty but our religious piety order and charity which are the life of our lives and the honor of all honors had been prolonged in the land of the living where now our neglect of duty as Fathers and Sons hath divided and destroyed us so far that like wretched children we cannot see the things which belong to our peace unless it be to avoid them much less can we peaceably and chearfully enjoy them they are for our sins and by our undutiful doings Luke 19.42 so hidden from our eyes § Of a Fatherly condition in Church and State How this penal and sad providence of God hath deprived us of our nursing Fathers in Church and State exposing us either to be Orphans and Fatherless vagabonds under no setled Orders or safe protection or else betraying us to such various strange and numerous Step-Fathers not fathers in Law but without all Law as have more of Lordly tyranny and Soldierly insolency by meer power than fatherly benignity or authority by any relation I leave it to wise men to judge and to God in time to teach us our errors and defects when our eyes are more open by another twenty years mutations miseries burdens exactions Wars terrors and confusions possibly we may with the Prodigal so arise from our husks and go to our Father and return to the duty we owe to God and man § If God had taken away the Fathers or Prophets of any people as Eliah to himself they had been excusable but for Sons to destroy and extirpate their deserving Fathers this seems to be not Turbo de coelo a whirlwind or fire from heaven but rather the effect of Turba gravis paci c. a fire and tempest from a lower region § I fear the end of our fatherless condition in Church and State will only turn at
those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Horsemen and Charioteers these were but in lanienam for spoil and prey for slaughter and captivity till after-ages from the Roman stoutness and Arms learned to fight more like men on foot trusting more to their own strength of which they were more Masters and could better manage it than to the fierceness of horses who take up half the man to rule them and is a vain thing to save by his much strength Psalm 33.17 as the Psalmist tells us The Scripture gives us many historical instances The weakness of secular Chariots and horses alone what great Expeditions and executions were begun and carried on by multitudes of chariots and horsemen what great defeats the Lord of hosts had given them Exod. 1â— 7 9. as Paroah with his Chariots and Horses which pursued the Israelites into the red Sea by a most presumptuous malice which no miracle could moderate or humble So Sisera with his nine hundred iron chariots â—ud 4.3 that is falcati currus armed with iron sithes and instruments of execution no less than with plates or shields of iron for defence were scattered and destroyed at the blasting of Gods displeasure both the horses and riders did fall Hence David a great and good Souldier ever great when good and prosperous while pious who received more wounds and detriment by one woman and his own wanton lust than by all the Gyants and Armies the horse and chariots he ever encountred he by long experience tells us how far the pride and confidence of the world was from true safety Some put their trust in horses and some in chariots Psalm 25.7 but we in the name of the Lord our God It is better to trust in the Lord Psalm 118.8 than in Princes and their Armies which easily are discomfited when God ariseth against them one of his heavenly Militia an Angel Isa 37.36 can smite in one night an Hundred fourscore and five thousand to the ground stark dead of Senacheribs insolent Souldiery yea and one of his earthly spiritual Militia his Prophets and Ministers as Eliah and after him this Elisha so Micaiah and others by lifting up their hands and prayers as Moses and Jehosaphat to heaven were able to strike terror and confusion to an host of men chariots and horses 2 Chron. 20.22 when they were a million of men and horses For these fight in virtute Dei altissimi in the power and name of the most High and Almighty God these Angels both in heaven and earth God useth as he did Elisha afterwards to give check to the counsels and powers of Kings 2 Kings 18.14 as the King of Assyria confessed and the King of Israel found it true while he had mountains full of Horses and chariots of fire attending of Elisha 2 King 26.17 and under his command so that the King gives him this same honor dying sensible what a loss it was to Church and State to lose such a Prophet more than to have lost all his chariots and horsemen § God that is on the side of his true Prophets and faithful servants as the visible Fathers and Guardians of his Church and Family hath his great Militia and thus sets it forth to humane capacity Psalm 68.17 The chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai when he appeared in terror to give the Law even so will he execute it and avenge the breaches of it by the Ministry of Angels at the last day And our Lord Jesus Christ who is trumphantly ascended on high is now Lieutenant General of all power in heaven and earth Psalm 8.18 Heb. 2.10 for the good of his Church the Captain of whose salvation he is who hath conquered and is still to conquier till all enemies are subdued to him even he takes care to furnish his Church in all ages with some that are as the chariots and horsemen of Israel either such Christian Kings and Princes or such Bishops and Ministers or such religious Noblemen and learned Gentlemen or such honest yeomen and humble Pesants yet good Christians that they are as the Soldiers and Armies of God in their several ranks and orders some as the chariots and horsemen others as the infantry or footmen The highest honor in the Churches Militia is given to the Prophets and Ministers because they have most power with God they open and shut heaven they bind and loose souls by Gods command and commission As every good Christian so those of the Clergy above others are either publicum lucrum or damnum as they live or die As it was said of St. Ambrose Bishop of Millan he was both ornamentum munimentum urbis orbis O what gallant chariots and horsemen were those Primitive Bishops and other eminent both Preachers and Writers such as Iraeneus Cyprian Athanasius Austin the Cyrils Basils Gregories Chrysostom Epiphanius Origen Clemens Jerom and others innumerable who did so stoutly incounter and rout those Amalekites of Heathen Idolaters and Philosophers of Hereticks and Schismaticks which pestred the Church as Grashopers and Locusts or oppressed it as Tyrants and Persecutors Two things from these honorable names which Elisha gives to Eliah we may observe First What the Prophets and Ministers of the Church ought to be according to their eminency in parts or place Secondly how they ought to be esteemed and treated First 1 What Warriers the Prophets and Ministers ought to be in the Church 1 Their courage What they ought to be to the Church and to their Country fortes animosi pugnaces ordinati bold as Lyons in Gods cause valiant couragious ready and orderly to fight the battels of the Lord the good fight of faith but bello incruento sanctis non sanguineis praeliis by an holy but harmless war saintly not sanguinary unbloody unless their own blood be to be shed they must make no wounds but on mens consciences They must be undaunted by any greatness policy or power that opposeth it self against God as St. Stephen was so was Apollos Act. 6. and 7 so St. Paul so Timothy and others who as good Soldiers sought to please not themselves or men by ease and idleness by flattery and chmpliance but him that had called them to his Ensign and Standard Their armature and weapons were that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evangelical harness 2 Their Armour which the Apostle prescrbes of the helmet of salvation Eph. 6.12 13 14 15 16. the sword of the Spirit and Word of God the shield of Faith and the brestplate of righteousness their fighting must be by preaching convincing praying reproving by doing good and suffering evill Their Enemies are to be not only flesh and blood that is 3 Their Enemies not the persons of men but the ignorances errors malice policy pride and prophaness of the evil world yea of Principalities and Powers of Devils and evil Angels
1 Pet. 5.9 their stratagems and devices their fiery darts and engines these they were to resist stedfast in the faith 4 The execution or slaughter they must make The strages execution or slaughter they must make is not of mens bodies lives and estates honors good names or liberties but of their inordinate lusts and vile affections their rude and unruly passions their damnable opinions and dangerous practices The Captives they are to take 5 The Captives they take are the Reason the Will the Mind the Souls and Spirits the high thoughts and proud imaginations of men who are detained in ignorance or error led captive by their own lusts and others temptations men or devils this captivity they are to lead captive Gal. 5.3 1 Cor. 7.22 Ioh. 8.36 Zach 9.12 that is to make them the redeemed of the Lord and Christ's freemen who were slaves to sin and Satan these are the Prisoners of hope whom they are in Christs name to set free this is all the hurt they may do or intend as Prophets and Ministers to mankinde Lastly 6 Their Triumph They have their triumphs in Christ and rejoycings in the Lord in doing their duty 2 Cor. 2.14 and discharging their consciences by which they may be means to save souls Isa 49.5 which will be their crown and rejoycing at the last day 2 Tim. 4. ◠and if Israel be not gathered yet they shall not lose the reward and crown which is prepared for these spiritual Soldiers Rev. 3.11 who aim only to save not to destroy their Sons Rev. 2.10 fellow-Citizens and brethren in this world and in the Church as men and Christians Nor shall they want their triumphs in Christ 2 Cor. 2.14 nor a triumphant song even the song of Moses at last Rev. 15.3 when Pharoah and all his host the Devil and his iustruments being quite overthrown the Israel of God shall have its full and free deliverance § Thus Christ hath had and ever will have his chariots and horsemen venerable Fathers Bishops and Presbyters under the Gospel as well as these Eliahs and Elishas under the Law Religion now is carried on with less terror and fire indeed than of old but with greater efficacy to save souls As the Sun in one day thaws more ice than thousands of hammars could break in a year the Church is compared to an Army with banners Cant. 6.4 12 and her companies like the chariots of a willing people easie to be Marshalled ordered and disciplined as becometh the people of Christ which will not mutiny against their spiritual guides rulers leaders because this is to rebel against the chief Commander Jesus Christ who like the Sun of righteousness is set upon the Evangelical chariot and drawn by the Quadrigae quaternion of Evangelists as fiery horses all over the world he makes his daily and orderly Ministers as his chariots and horses too sets them on the axis of the Law and Gospel which support the true faith and their authority he adds to them the four wheels of good Learning sober Judgement honest Zeal and potent eloquence into their hearts and hands he puts the reins or bridles of charity and discretion Zack 14.18 upon which is written holiness to the Lord Glory to God on high and good will towards men Thus becoming all things honest and comely to all men speaking a word in due season Ise 5.4 2 Tim. 6.15 and rightly dividing the word of Truth taking care above all that they overthrow not all the honor and credit of their preaching and ministery by evil conversation Ne factis deficientibus verba erubescant lest the solecisme of of their lives make their Doctrine seem but a riddle or an incredible Fable Secondly In the second place 2 The entertainment due to those spiritual Chariots and horsemen If the Prophets of the Lord both legal and Evangelical the Pastors and Teachers the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church are of this use and importance for their ability sufficiency and dexterity and efficacy to the Church of God and specially to the Christian World as the charets and horsmen are in an army being Christs Militia not fleshly and corporeal but spiritual and intellectual an earthly sort of Angels which help the Lord against the mighty and assist men to conquer themselves first who are their own and Gods greatest enemies and then the world and Devil Sure then this holy Army these chariots and horsmen deserve to be esteemed entertained and treated not as the lixae calones the filth and off-scouring of the world and forced to lie among the pots and kitchin-stuff of contemp and poverty but as Mahanaim the host of God and Christ Psal 68.13 Gen. 32.2 listed and employed in his holy war and service and so to be used with love and respect as men worthy of double honor Men will feed their horses grease their chariot wheels and pay their Horsmen well to be sure § I know the Pannick blind and preposterous terrors of vulgar and Plebean minds are prone now to regard one Captain or Colonel yea or one sorry Trooper beyond the best Bishop or ablest Preacher in England Luke 2.4 because as beasts they regard more those that can kill their bodies than such as are means to save their souls This mistake of poor parasticik people is not for want of ignorance and meanness of spirit Whether the spiritual or temporal Militia deserve best of the publique but for want of judgement and conscience gratitude and common civility not considering that both as to private and publick interest of any Church and State as well as of every good Christian that of Tostatus is most true on this place Fides preces Eliae fortiores omnibus curribus toto equitatu Israelis The Israel of God owed more to Eliah's prayers and faith and exemplary zeal than to all the chariots and horses in the Land § Not that I odiously compare or disparage the honest way of a Souldiers employment First in a just and lawfull cause Secondly under a just and lawful command Thirdly when content with their wages and doing violence to none Fourthly when they are modest men not ambitious to turn all right into might and set jus gladii above jus gentis lex terrae Fifthly When in other things they are men that fear God love true Religion encourage Learning and reverence the worthy Ministers Bishops and Pastors of the Church of Christ but when Soldiers grudge at Ministers maintenance and gape to get it when they will needs turn Preachers to put scorns and affronts on Ministers when they think themselves necessary and Ministers superfluous when they urge to have Commanders Councils of War Discipline pay and honor for their Militia and either deny or envy or destroy all these as to the Ministry They must give me leave to magnifie my Office and to tell those of them who understand
prudentia senex sanctitate Angelus As a child for harmlesness as a young-man for vigor as a son in his obedience to superiors as a Brother in his charity as a Father for his gravity as aged for his wisdom and as an Angel for his sanctity § His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great renown and publique fame But the evidence pregnancy and general renown of his great endowments and worth for learning and prudence for gifts and graces save me a great part of my labor for these were so well known to all the English world in Vniversities in Cities in Countries that in speaking of Bishop Brounrig I may fear to be as tedious and superfluous to you of this present age as if I should hold a candle to shew you the Sun which is sufficiently known by its own light if therefore I may seem to offend any of you by my prolixity be pleased to impute it to the charity and zeal I have for posterity that they may not be ignorant of what many are loth to know and own in this age the great worth of our late English Prelates and Reformed Bishops nor of the injustice of that late Sarcasm which joyns Prelacy and Popery together § He was for prelacy but for from Popery Here was much of a Primitive Prelate nothing of some modern Popes here was the learned industry and humble piety of antient Christan Bishops nothing of that Antichristian pride empty formality and impious hypocrisie which in the black and blind centuries many Popes who were but diseased hydropick over-grown and unsound Bishops have been guilty of by the confession of Baronius Platina and others of the Romish adhesion from which also I am far remote though a great vindicator of good Bishops § As Nazianzen speaks of his commending Hieron the Philosopher He was willing to appear so much a Philosopher as to commend and admire such a Philosopher So I cannot but appear so much Episcopal as to commend the excellencies of an excellent Bishop which some were as loth to see as willing to smother § Bishop Brounrig was a person of that soundness of judgement of that conspicuity for an unspotted life of that unsuspected integrity that his life was virtutum norma as St. Jerom of Nepotian It a in singulis virtutibus eminebat quasi coeteras non habuisset so eminent in every good and perfect gift as if he had had but one only This made him loved and admired most by those who had most experience of him He was not like those rough pictures and unpolished Statues which at a distance make a pretty shew Near hand minuit praesentia famam their commendation and comliness shrinks almost to nothing but either courtship and formality or the meer noise and vapor of vulgar credulity which is as prone to worship a gay Idol as a true Diety yea people are more taken with complemental froth than with the most accomplished worth § His openness and sincerity of life In this Coloss or Heroe of learned and real worth there was nothing dubious or dark nothing various or inconstant nothing formal or affected nothing that needs palliation or apology He lived always as at noon day never using or wanting any twilight or shadow I never heard of any thing said or done by him which a wise and good man would have wished unsaid or undone yet I had the happiness to know him above thirty years He always appeared as Isidor Pelus speaks of Timotheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sanctuary of sobriety a magazein of humanity a treasury of all vertue and a superlative object of just commendations no less than imitation § He was indeed an Evangelical Eliah potent and fervent in spirit yet not with a heat predatorious but propitious He was apt and able to every good word and work having great parts but little passions As little subject to the usual infirmities and transports incident to men of high and rare abilities as could be few cedars of so noble a procerity ever suffered less tempests or enjoyed more tranquillity within themselves The reason was this he had no leaven of pride at least not so turgent and predominant as either to sowre or swell his passions above his gracious perfections he had the gentleness of a Father the potency of a Prophet the wisdom of a Counsellor the gravity of a Bishop the majesty of a Prince the courage of a Champion he was like Sampson an Army in himself he was as a Troop of Chariots and horsemen strong and resolute for the defence of the true Christian and Reformed Religion with which this Church of England was once blessed both against the great Baals of Popery and the less Baalims of Popularity § So that if I had chosen this Text possibly you would have commended my discretion but as Jacobs venison it offered it self unhunted no other was thought on by me as I told you at first nor could any Jewel in the cabinet of Scripture have better born the characters or gravings of this excellent person and the occasion than this Text which I have wrought off before your eyes my work now is to set the signet of the Text thus graven not upon that dead wax or cold clay which is in that coffin but on that great spirit and that gracious soul whose goodly shrine and temple that body lately was I presume Iust and general Elogies of him I may without the envy or frown of any worthy person here present to honor this solemnity use the words of David at Abners funeral 2 Sam. 3.38 Know you not that this day there is a Prince so St. Jerom and others interpret that Psa 45.16 whom thou mayst make Princes in all lands of Bishops in all Churches I am sure a great man is faln this day in our Israel a Prophet yea more than an ordinary Prophet for as Christ said of John Baptist Among those that were born of women few have in all points equalled this worthy Bishop this reverend Father this gracious Lord who in that true Nobility of wisdom vertue grace and goodness had not many his Peers even among those who were so impatient to have such venerable persons full of prudence learning and piety sit with them or have any influence in the great Councils of Church and State whose presence one would think by the way of former ages was esteemed not only comely but necessary in a Christian Commonwealth to see as Representatives of the Church and Fathers of the Clergy Ne quid detrimenti patiantur aut Ecclesia aut Ecclesiastici for if Religion and Church-interests be left to Laymen only if they do not make a prey of it while it is worth a groat yet they are prone to finde other business and pursue designs of more pleasure profit or honor than Religion seems to most of them and many times as St. Ambrose observed to make mad work of Religion as the Arrians did when they appealed from
were not likely to have made a Liturgy of straw and stubble 2. For its excellent matter which is divine sound and holy besides its method which is prudent and good 3. For the very great good he saw it did as to all sober Christians so to the common sort of plain people who what ever other provision they had of their Ministers private abilities yet they were sure every Lords Day at least to have a wholesom and compleat form not only of Prayers but of all other necessaries to salvavation set before them for faith holy life and devotion in the Creeds Commandments Lords Prayer with Confessions and Supplications admirably linked together and fitted to the meanest capacities the want of which he saw was not supplied by any Ministers private way of praying or preaching which in very deed are but small pittances of piety or fragments compared to the latitude of religious fundamentals and varieties contained in the Liturgie the want of which he judged would induce a great ignorance as he saw and said to me a little before his death it had done already among the ordinary sort of people in Countrey and City whose souls are as precious to God as others of greater parts and capacities whose appetites were not to be flattered and deceived with novelties but fitted and fed with wonted solidities by which they would thrive look better as by the use of plain and repeated food which is as their daily bread than those that delight in greater varieties and dainties which may seem more toothsom to wanton palates but are not more wholesom or nourishing to honest hearts who are commonly less licorous in Religion and best content with what is best for them § Not that he was such a Formalist Verbalist and Sententiolist as could not endure any alteration of words or phrases or method or manner of expressions in the Liturgie to which either change of times or of language or things may invite he well knew there had been variety of Liturgies in Churches and variations in the same Church he made very much but not too much of the English Liturgie not as the Scriptures unalterable but yet he judged that all alterations in such publick and settled concerns of Religion ought to be done by the publick spirit counsel and consent of the Prophets Prince and People However this was a concluded Maxim with him That the solemnity and sacredness of consecrating those Christian mysteries of the blessed Sacraments were not to be adventured upon Ministers private abilities tenuities or distempers but by a publick and uniform spirit among Preachers and people all should say Amen to the same Prayers and receive the same mysteries under one form of consecration in which nothing should be defective or superfluous § His personal and occasional abilities for prayer were answerable to his other gifts and graces both for matter method utterance discretion and devotion full fervent and pathetick upon his own and others spirits not coldly formal and stark nor yet wildly rambling loose and broken but judicious apt grave and of so moderate an extent as suited the weight of the occasion the capacity of the auditors and the intensiveness of his own heart his prayers were not the labor and product only of lips lungs and tongue but of his spirit and understanding he minded not the glory but grace of prayer As to the Government of the Church by Episcopal Presidency His judgment of Church government by Episcopacy to which Prince and Presbyters agree he was too learned a man to doubt and too honest to deny the universal custom and practice of the Church of Christ in all ages and places for Fifteen hundred years according to the pattern at least received from the Apostles who without doubt followed as they best knew the mind of Christ This Catholick prescription he he thought so sacred that as it did sufficiently prejudge all novel presumptions so nothing but importune and grand necessities put upon any Church could excuse much less justifie the cutting off those pipes or the turning of that primitive and perpetual course of Ecclesiastical Ordination subordination and Government into another channel Nor did he understand the method of those new Vitruviusses who would seem Master-builders though they are yet but destroyers when they affect to have all timber and stones in the Churches building of the same shape size and bigness when the Church of Christ is compared to a body which hath members of different forms use and honor 1 Cor. 12. § Yet this worthy man had nothing of secular pomp or vain ambition in his thoughts meerly to bear up or bolster out a formal and titular Episcopacy with Goats hair like Michols image No he exacted worth and work And where true Bishops did the duties and good works belonging to the principal Pastors of the flock he thought they deserved double honor as Fathers and Governors among good Christians both of revenue and reverence § Yet he did not judge the principal dignity or authority of Episcopacy to depend upon its Secular advantages but on its Ecclesiastical custom and Apostolick institution and however no man was more ready to condescend to any external diminutions and comely moderations that might stand with a good conscience and prudence as tending to the peace and unity of the Church yet no man was more firm resolute and immovable from gratifying any Sacrilegious Projectors or proud Factionists or peevish Novellers to the reproach of the Church of England yea and of the Catholick Church in all the world which had its Bishops every where before it had its Bible or its Scriptures compleated In the matter of Episcopacy he differed little from Bishop Vshers moddel of the ancient Synodical Government only he thought the petulancy of mens spirit in these times beyond the primitive simplicity did require all prudent advantages of Order and authority which might consist with piety and true policy as antidotes ought to be heightned to the measure of the poison they are to encounter § He approved not a leveling party among Ministers Only he could never be induced so far to forsake the principle of all Reason Order and Government in humane societies or to disown the remarkable differences which God and Nature age and education experience and studies industry and grace did make between Ministers no less than other men as to think that neither work nor rewards of honor and estate may be proportioned to their different worths but that the youngest Schollar yea the meanest Schoolmaster if they can but now and then appear in a Pulpit and take Orders as they best fancy shall presently in all things of publick honor and Ecclesiastick authority run parallel to the greatest Schollars and gravest Divines so that either a beardless and juvenile petulancy or more aged but empty gravity shall in all points be level and justle with the most venerable worth and accomplished learning of those that are capable to
teach the others simplicity or even in years might be their Fathers § He saw no cause to affect among Ministers above all Fraternities this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inverting of all order that the first should be last and the last first though he subscribed to the rule of Christ that the greatest among his Ministers even the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very chiefest of the Apostles should in humility and charity condescend and demean themselves so as if they were servants to all and the least of all Mat. 13.11 yet he saw this precept was vain and impertinent as not practicable if none were greater or more eminent than others as in age gifts and graces so in spiritual power and Ecclesiastical authority not tyrannously usurped but by the consent of all conferred § Those novel interpretations he saw were but wresting Scripture from primitive sense to bring in the postern chaos of popular parity among Ministers which never was in Christs or the Apostles or after days nor can be ever without great disadvantages to both Ministers and people while Presbyters having no order or subordination among themselves must either have no fraternal communion living like stragling sheep without fold flock or shepherd or meeting arbitrarily and occasionally they must be all Sons and all Fathers without centre or circumference ference having no principle to convene or move them no power coercive to containe or restrain them and no regular authority to reprove or repress their extravagancies in doctrine or manners Nor was it his ambition but his conscience and judgement that thus commanded him to assert Episcopacy Not ambition but conscience made him Episcopall even long before he was or possibly thought to be a Bishop upon which account when I once told his Lordship after he was made Bishop by the King and unmade by the people that a person equestris ordinis but parum aequae mentis had in discourse told me That he wondered Dr. Brounrig would be made a Bishop whom he had heard sometime declare his judgement against Episcopacy which report as I no way believed so relating it soon after and the authors name to him he with some passion and emotion as full of a just defiance and contradiction to such a fable and falshood professed he lied notoriously for saith he I never thought much less said as that lewd person hath falsly averred I thank God I took the Office of a Bishop with a good conscience and so I hope by his mercy I shall both maintain and discharge it He was by the favour of King Charles His being made Bishop◠An◠1641. and to the great liking of all good men made Bishop of Exeter anno 1641. But as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one born out of due time when that storm was beginning to rise which afterward shipwracked the Sovereign and many other gallant ships the wall was too far swoln out and threatning to fall before this potent pillar or shore was applied to support it if any single Puissance could have done good his shoulders were most probable to have done it for his counsel and prudence his aequanimity and moderation were equal to his other vast abilities for he had not only the verdure and spring of wit also the summer of much learning and reading but he had the harvest of a mature understanding and a mellow judgement in all matters Politick and prudential both Ecclesiastical and Civil If his excellent temper had sooner been added as an allay to some other mens hotter spirits His aequanimous temper possibly Troja nostra stetisset we had not seen such deplorable ruines of a flourishing and Reformed Church But upon this and other worthy Bishops heads was this great breach and ruine of ancient and venerable Episcopacy to tumble by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impetuosity and exorbitancy of the times which at length grew to so popular a prevalency that some men would not endure the best Bishops nor any moderation short of total extirpation that way might be made for confiscation For Episcopacy was with modest approaches first undermined by some plausible Pioners and Ingineers who pretended that it did not stand upright but leaned toward the Court and Prerogative too much that they would only set it right and so support it but afterward it was quite blown up much over-doing their first pretentions which were only to reform some exorbitancies in the use and practices of times or men to which all wise and good Bishops easily and chearfully together with this worthy Prelate would have condescended and submitted provided it were done not by tumultuous impressions of faction and violence but by that Parliamentary fulness and freedom which became the honor piety wisdom and majesty of this Church and Nation but instead of snuffing some Bishops all were extinguished since which time we have been at blindmansbuff and in the dark scuffling about Church Government § His loyalty in all times And however this excellent Bishop enjoyed not the benefit of the Kings favour and munificence as to his Bishoprick or any other preferment after the troubles of the times yet he was ever most unmoveable in his loyal respects of sidelity gratitude love and obedience which he thought were absolutely due to Soveraign Princes from their Subjects as Christians a point which I heard him notably discourse and prove the last Sermon he ever lived to preach which was on the last fifth of November 1659 at the Temple on that Text Dan. 6.21.22 O King live for ever His judgment of Soverainty and subjection c. Proving out of the Scriptures and the both judgement and practice of the Primitive Christians in their sorest persecutions that they venerated their Superiors Kings or Emperors for an Emperor was but as an overgrown King that either had many Kings in his belly or had devoured their Kingdoms as Tertullian in his Apology says Tertul. Apol. c. 33. Temperans majestatem Caesaris infra Deum magis illum commen do Deo cui soli sublicio So cap. 39. in the next place to God as only less then and subject to the Divine Majesty as safest for both the Emperors and their people too Upon any pretext of religious liberty he denied any capacity in Christian Subjects as such to resist their Soveraign Princes for which they had neither Christs precept nor any good Christians practice There was left them only the choice to obey actively or passively to do or to suffer and rather to suffer than to sin by doing or resisting in any unlawful way which Doctrine he had formerly declared in a Sermon at Cambridge for which he was immediately proscribed and outed of his places in the Vniversity and deprived of his liberty Where first visiting his Lordship in prison he acquainted me with his Sermon and his sense of proceedings § Not but that he well understood that some Subjects not as Christians but as cives men and Citizens might enjoy greater freedom
than others according as they were settled by civil compacts and politick agreements or constitutions of State where the Laws of the Land give any stop restraint or limit to Princes power and proceedings by putting some co-ordinate and cautionary power into some orderly way and legal procedure whereby to vindicate or assert the rights of Subjects there he judged the great Arbitrator of just and unjust lawful and unlawful was the Law of the Nation as Mans and Gods Ordinance which who so brake Prince or People was a transgressor against God and Man who so pursued was unblameable in which case the Lawyer was to go before and the Divine to follow as to resolution of conscience § But for Subjects who were once by publick consent of Laws and many oaths bound to the limits and inclosures of obedience and legal subjection for these to affect a liberty under pretence of Religion as Christians or of any common priciples and natural freedoms as men beyond the established rules and boundaries of the Laws this he thought such a fanatick fetch as would undo and overthrow all Government for where is there any Christian State so setled in which some men will not quarrel with the Laws as too strait-laced for their either spiritual or natural liberties their consciences or conveniencies that is for their lusts and licenciousness their ambition or covetousness or their revenge and discontents § People ungoverned their own greatest oppressors He found by reading and experience that no Tyrannies and Oppressions of any lawful Prince were ever so heavy upon any Nation as when it turns its own Tyrant and fals under a popular self-oppression by inordinate and immoderate affectations of liberty and oppositions to legal and setled Soveraignty as was evident in the passionate Apostacy of the Ten Tribes from Davids house pretending Solomons exactions when it is better to be oppressed by one wise Prince than to be left to popular liberties which ruine Church and State § He judged as one true God is beyond ten thousand Idols so was one Lawful Soveraign with a wise Council and a settled Law beyond all the many headed and many handed Hydra's of any popular parity or other forms of Government whatsoever § For he had observed that warlike and populous Nations are much more crushed and bruised with their own weight like heavy bodies when they fall from an higher station or posture then when they are only bastonadoed with a cudgel or not mortally wounded with a sword which blows have as far less pain and expence of blood or spirits so greater possibility and speed of recovery § Though he was a very learned and well-read Schollar yet he had not studied Marianas or other Jesuitish Catechisms as to those reserves in point of civil subjection and obedience by which they allow either one great Pope or many little ones to dominier over Soveraign Princes or chief Magistrates upon any account of Christs Kingdom and spiritual power § He was more versed in the Bible of the Bishops translation than in any Papal glosses or others Annotations § However being a Father of the Church he thought it became him to be a very dutiful and obedient Son to the King as Father of his Country in England who was under God Grandfather of Church and State by a Law that invested him in a Soveraignty or Monarchy subject to no power on earth § This he judged the safest way as to inward and outward peace in conscience and prudence for men and Christians for Church and State Accordingly when O. P. with some shew of respect to him demanded his judgment in some publick affairs then at a nonplus his Lordship with his wonted gravity and freedom replied My Lord The best counsel I can give you is that of our Saviour Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods with which free answer O. P. rested rather silenced than satisfied When he had accepted to be a Bishop I think he had sinned if he refused Gods call to that Office and honor being so able so worthy What damps and distances he found from some Ministers after they saw he was an eclipsed Bishop and so willing to have done good as in all times so in such a time as that was the Amphibian Ministers who could live in Presbytery or Episcopacy as their interest led them when they saw the Northern tempest strong the tide to turn and this good Bishop with others not likely to enjoy the estates and honors of their Bishopricks Then O then began some of those Preachers whose Darling Crown and Triumph whose almost adoration and Idol Dr. Brounrig had sometimes been now they began to withdraw from him to keep a loof and at distance to look as strangers on him and to be either afraid or ashamed to appear before him such a reproach and maul his very presence constancy and gravity were to their popular and time-serving inconstancies that many became his enemies because he persevered in the truth they once asserted and had now deserted by the confutation and conversion which tumults and arms had made on their spirits more than any new reasons and arguments § Others were so peevish and spiteful against him not as Dr. Brounrig but as an unfortunate Bishops that to revenge their own sin and folly on their betters they after the Lystrian levity Act. 14.18 19. endeavored to stone him and other Bishops whom they once had reverenced as Gods consenting to and applauding his expulsion out of the House of Lords out of the Colledge and University yea and to his deposition as much as humane power and malice could from his Episcopal Office and Authority which yet he failed not while he lived as he had power and opportunity to discharge § If he had as a Bishop met with better times as to Christianity or worse as to Heathenish barbarity so as to have shined fully and steadily in one of those golden Candlesticks of the Church for which he was fitted I make no doubt but the most benign influence of so able so affable so amiable so consciencious so compleat a Bishop would have wrought as great effects in any Diocess where he lived as Gregorius Thaumaturgus is said to have done in his Scythian Bishoprick where when he came first to them he found but fifteen Christians when he left them he left but so many Heathens or Infidels amonst them Bishop Brounrig was as likely as any man to have been a Thaumaturgus to have wrought miracles in this age if they had been so just moderate and wise as to have made use of his oracular wisdom in grand and publick concerns or to have trusted to the counsels of such Schollars as much as of Soldiers § His publick prudential ability Possibly other men and Bishops might have as much learning but few that ever I knew had his incomparable clearness candor solidness sweetness dexterity eloquence and great
domesticks to enjoy him in any constant receptions or addresses as some of his friends and many others oft did to their great content and none either more welcomly or more deservedly than the liberal and noble soul of Mr. Thomas Rich Esq of Sunning in Barkshire of whose ready heart and large hand to works of charity I could here give a particular and great account upon my motion to him but that his modesty hath oft severely forbad me to speak of it being satisfied with Gods reward which I pray he and his may never want It is enough to say of that worthy Citizen that generous Gentleman and most charitable Christian that his name deserves to be with honor thus registred and engraven to all posterity That he was the special friend of Bishop Brounrig An honor as great and deserved as that which the Lord Brook affected to make his Monumentremarkable to after ages by his inscribing and Friend to Sir Philip Sidney § Of this Bishops excellent endowments and manners I may say as Suetonius doth of Augustus his Looks Forma per omnes aetatum gradus constanti he was not only in all ages a very comly person but did all things at all times steadily and handsomly The indignities and afflictions which were cast upon him by the torrent of times as a Bishop and counter byassed to them yet as a rock in the sea or a brazen wall he indured them unmoved unmolested his constant and judicious wisdom remained with him while he saw factious and giddy spirits wasting themselves while they foamed out their own shame he enjoyed a bright and unblemished fame with a good conscience having had no hand in the mutation or misery of Church or State § Indeed he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen said of Athanasius to commend him is to commend verrue or wisdom or health or the light of the Sun not that as St. Augustine says of another Casta magna illa anima humanas laudes aut cupit aut curat that good and great soul either living desired or now departed needeth the sparks of humane praises to set forth its splendor Quem caeli habent laudabilem laudatum quid de novo in cipiam laudare super terram as St. Bernard speaks he that is as praise-worthy praised now in heaven with Well done good and faithful servant is not concerned with our praises on earth § But we and the ages to come which are like to be dark and blind enough and the more for his absence do need the radiancy and beams of such illustrious and exemplary worth which the more indignly it was treated and buried alive by some mens envy or malice the more studiously do I endeavour that he and his deserving name or rather the instances of Gods glory in him may live after his death Paterns of moderate vertues may like lesser gems or sparks of Diamonds be frequent but compleat ones like Paragon jewels are few in any age such he was and so to be valued § The truth is the world was not worthy of such a man that is the partial plebeian factious parasitick paralitick giddy ungrateful world though it needed such as Antidotes and Physicians being very sick and so distempered as not to endure any remedy Having been long surfeited with former peace and prosperity poisoned with factions and discontents yea and cloyed with a kind of wontedness and satiety of Religion The concurrence of excellency in him § As it was said of old In uno Homero omnes Poetae in uno Cicerone omnes Oratores in uno Aristotele omnes Philosophi in one Honter were all Poets in one Tully all Orators and in one Aristotle all Philosophers and in one Varre Polybius or Plutarch all the good learning of all learned men So I may say there was in one Bishop Brounrig the quintessence of all good Christians all good Schollars all good Divines all good Preachers and all good Bishops In him one might find the sincerity of the anitent Fathers and the solidness of later Divines the Schoolmen did not exceed him in acuteness nor the best Casuists in exactness nor the soberest Monasticks in devotion and sanctity § His liberal and charitable soul He had the learning of Nazianzen Basil or Jerom the courage and constancy of Athanasius and St. Ambrose the eloquence of St. Chrysostom and Chrysologus the mildness and gentleness of St. Cyprian or St. Austin the charity and benignity of Paulinus and Martinus sect His contentedness and patience when stripped of all c. When he could not have common equity from others yet he exacted Christian charity from himself to others he would give de modico almost de nihilo of that little meal and oyl that was left him or by others supplied to him and if he could not give de suo yet he would de se of his paternal prayers and benedictive comprecations nor was any man more exact and faithful in the distributing other mens charities committed to him as some good Obadiahs did of later years when even among the Prophets of the Lord good Ministers then were so many pittiful objects of charity to the joy and triumph of the Jesuites and Roman Priests as much as to the reproach and shame of the Reformed Profession which some pretend to without equity or charity When the storms of the times had stripped him of all publick emoluments as to the revenues and perquisites of his Bishoprick yet aequiore animo sua damna pertulit quà m alii sua lucra he shewed a greater mind in bearing his losses than others did in getting their gains yea he was more deeply affected for the wickedness of those that lay under the real guilt or vehement and just suspition of so foul a sin as Sacriledge than for the loss he sustained by it he was prone to say chearfully If others had more right to those Lands and Houses than the Bishops and other Churchmen in Gods name let them take them but they that either alienated or bought or fold them had need to have a better title than either the present proprietors and possessors had by Law or the Church and State in equity or the King by Soveraignty or the Donors by their Deeds or God as Lord Paramount to whose glory they were devoted In the alienation of these Church estates he looked more to the hand of God which was probative and punitive than mans which was predatorious and passionate I once heard him after his wonted smiling yet venerable manner of speaking profess that he took it a little unkindly that those Lords and Gentlemen who heretofore had professed an ambition to see him a Bishop and did with great courtship congratulate his coming to sit in the House of Lords not only that they should be great sticklers to destroy all Bishopss as to their honor and estates but that they would not now so much as let him have their Committee power to gather
in the arrears of his Bishoprick which were due to him before the direption and depraedation which arrears he said were now in those private mens hands who he thought had less right to them and less need of them than himself But he found the predominant Genius of the times was such that instead of letting Bishops live in a capacity to be given to Hospitality they reduced them to the necessity of getting into some Hospitals for their relief Thus while the Secular Militia while Colonels and Captains ride triumphantly on horses and in chariots The partiality of times as to the spiritual Militia of the Church compared to the pomp and glory of the Secular get great Salaries and good Lands this eminent Bishop who was worthy to be among the Chieftains and prime Rulers or Leaders of the Church was with all other of his order reduced from his chariot and horses to go on foot as far as his legs would carry him or to borrow conveniences of his friends who were better provided for easie conveyance of him T is true those great Commanders and these great Schollars enjoy very different estates and esteem now in this English world which we must leave all at last the great question will be Who hath the best and surest estate in another world where it will not be enquired what a man got here but how and with what justice nor what he lost but upon what account and with what patience or tranquillity of spirit He had no charge for many years before he died but himself and a Servant who was worthy to wait on such a Master His present fingle life and former marriage Childe he never had any though the Husband of one Wife once married for a little while to a worthy Gentlewoman chusing rather chaste and honorable marriage at those years that to affect such a celebacy as was less consistent with sanctity from which chastity is in no condition of life single or social to be separated His great grief for the loss of such a blessing at those years when about forty shewed his great value of it I have heard it from his constant friend and long associate Dr. Edward Young which relation is character enough of his worth that it was a great part of his friendly employment at that time flagrante dolore to be as an Angel to comfort Dr. Brounrig in that solitude and sadness For great and generous souls though gracious yet are apt to conceive vehement sorrows being as ships of burthen they lanch not but in seas of some depth that is they love not but where extraordinary merit and vertue engageth them which being exposed to the common storms of mortality must needs toss them with the greater waves nor can they always either cast anchor or suddenly make their port as they would § I have heard from good hands a passage not unworthy of such a pair which I think not a miss to relate His wife brought him a very handsom estate in mony and being consumptionary and so likely to die without child she desired him to give her leave to give away by will as she pleased to her friends some part of that estate she brought him he most chearfully granted her desire if she would to the half or all her estate she having made this essay of his noble mind told him with thanks and tears That she gave all she had to him as her best friend and one that deserved much more than she could give him soon after she left him and all sublunary comforts § After times shewed him what a providence it was by so ingenuous a way to have something of estate cast in to defend himself against the after-injuries and pressures of life besides learning and merit for that estate I think was his best reserve though the distress of times had shrewdly wire-drawn that also before he died § His reception and welcome to friends Being loosed from those silken cords and golden chains of a good wife and married no more adding an honor to celebacy as well as to marriage he carried with him no train beyond one servant this made his motions more expedite and his receptions more easie for many headed guests like Hydra's either scare away or soon eat up their own welcom especially if they be only as caterpillars are fruges consumere nati only to eat to chat and to play but this worthy person was so venerable and useful that he was ever most welcom to those who well understood that to entertain him was indeed to entertain au Angel in flesh and blood a grand Intelligence a Cherubick spirit a Seraphick soul a true Saint both as a Bishop of the Church and as a very holy man § Indeed none could be hospitable to him gratis he always paid largely for his entertainments not only requiting but over-meriting them His domestick discourses by the many excellent discourses his elegant and useful reparties on all occasions hence it was as St. Jerom speaks of Nepotian Ita eum mirabantur colebant amici quasi novum quotidie cernerent he was every day as welcome to Friends as if but newly come There was no string in the great Theorbo of Learning but he would strike it so fully so harmoniously and so gracefully as nothing was beyond the rational melody of his speech for History Philosophy Divinity Morality for all points and parts of Religion Dogmatick Polemick Practick Casuistick Hermetick or interpretative of Scriptures The marrow and true sense of the Fathers the subtilty of the Schoolmen the solidity of Neotericks he had so ready so clear and so percolated from either the authors obscurity or tedious prolixity that his Epitomes or Quintessences and Distillations of them by his discourses were more spiritful and perspicuous than the Originals or the first mass in which they were diffused And although he had this Magazine of classick and authentick learning His elaborateness in preaching which readily furnished him to speak on the sudden of all things apté ornaté copiosé amply and handsomly yet as to his sacred Oratory or publick preaching He was very elaborate and exact not only in reading and meditating but in compleat writing of his Sermons even to his last So loth was he to do that work of God negligently I hope the world may be happy to see those accurate pieces which passed his own polishing and perfective hand though these printed must needs lose of the life they had when spoken by him who taught as one having authority and not as popular parasites or plebeian Scribes I mean not those grave Ministers who preach worthily to the plebes or common people but those that take their aim and directory from vulgar humors This diligence he used notwithstanding that his very extemporary discourses set off with the emphasis of his oratorious voyce with the majesty of his goodly presence and with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power and warmth of
frowned on sin and smiled on goodness § This affliction only that noble Society had that having tasted a little of that Manna and honey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some seven or eight times they were not permitted longer to enjoy the full and durable blessings of so sweet so plenteous and so heavenly repast In which he so dispenced his divine store and provision as St. John wrote to youngmen and Fathers to children and old men in his first Epistle so this Apostolick Bishop and Preacher at one Sermon both pleased the young Gentlemen and profited the Antients teaching the first there to know their duty and the second to do it preparing the one to live holily the other to dye happily § But this rich banquet was not to last long a little of Bishop Brounrig was a great deal for any one congregation to have In Michaelmas Term next following his bodily infirmities began to prevail against the strength and willingness of his mind not permitting him to preach in publick save only on the fifth of November which was his last though he did preach in private almost to all that came to him and were capable of his converse even till he was much spent and weary as I have heard him complain God was pleased to exercise him with bodily pains His bodily paines and infirmities indispositions and distempers sometimes with sharp fits of the stone and hydropick inclinations which made the chariot of his body which was somewhat plethorick and corpulent drive heavily though those fiery horses his fervent spirits were still agile and able But under all these God supported him with his grace and a spirit as always humble devout and pious so for the most part sociable serene and chearful till he had lived to his Sixty seventh year Then with age sickness increased with great failings of spirit The Will he made which gave him the alarms of approaching death but before this while he was yet in competent health of body and serenity of mind he made his Will which bears date as Mr. Thomas Buck his Executor told me two years before his departure A Will much like that of St. Austin or other Primitive Bishops not loaden with great and pompous Legacies of money but rather with testimonies of a pious grateful and charitable soul That little he had of estate was distributed either as tokens of respect love and gratitude to his ancient friends or as agnitions of his nearest deserving kindred and relations or as requitals to a well-deserving Servant or as charitable reliefs to the poor he was pauperior opibus but opulentior moribus as Chysologus speaks of St. Lanrence § If any man quarrel that he gave away no more by Will The reason is he had no more He wanted not a large heart or liberal hand no man was further from covetousness which is never so unseasonable as when a man is dying Nor was he wanting to be his own Executor chusing rather in secret to give much while he lived than to leave more when he died If this be his defect that he gave not great sums as the renowned Bishop Andrews or other Bishops and Clergymen sometime did to pious and charitable uses to Colledges Libraries Hospitals when Bishops and other Churchmen injoyed those rewards and revenues which the piety and Laws of the Nation had proportioned to their places and merit truly it must be imputed to the injuries and privations of the times for no tree would have born more or fairer fruit as in other so in this kind than this fair and fruitful figtree if he had not been blasted not by Christs word as a Bishop or as barren but by the fatal curse of the times No Christian would have done more good works of this nature or more advisedly than this wise and venerable Bishop Si res ampla domi similisque affectibus esset if his estate had been answerable to his mind And yet he had discouragements enough as to such works and charitable donations wherein the Sacrilegious sauciness of some mens spirits who dare make bold to take from God and never ask his leave is such that liberal souls are even nonplust how to place any durable and great charity in so safe a way as the Cormorant and Vulture of avarice or publick necessity and State frugality will not in time seise on it as a prey sic rapitur fisco quod dabatur debetur Christo One would have thought that no times would have made a prey and spoil of those Ecclesiastial revenues which Henry the Eighth's luxury and avaricious prodigality had spared but we see Joel 1.4 the catterpillar will devour what the canker-worm and locust and palmer-worm have left The pious improvement of his interals of health In all his vacancies from pains and bodily infirmities he was frequent in preaching in celebrating and receiving the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper in his private retirements much in reading cheifly the Scriptures of later years in meditating and in prayer besides his social joyning with others in family duties in which as he willingly and devoutly used the Liturgy of the Church so far as it was fitted to publick and private necessities so he either added of his own or admitted from others those pious and prudent prayers which more nearly suited with the private devotions and condition of those that were present § His willingness to dy in these distracted times He had more frequent infirmities as gentle Monitors a little before his death of which he would speak to my self and others in a kind of familiar sort as one that by dying daily was well acquainted with death He would say That it was a very cheap time now to die there being so little temptation to desire life and so many to welcome death since he had lived to see no King in the State no Bishop in the Church no Peer in Parliament no Judge in the Land yea and no Parliament in any freedom honor power or being worthy that name Omnia miles all power was contracted to the pummel of their sword or the barrel of their guns the Soldier was all in all in that black interregnum or horrid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which had neither form nor power of any legal government in England in that dark day departed this great light All Church and State being reduced to military arbitration and presumption he saw nothing remained of order or honor love or Law Reason and Religion in any publick and social correspondency yea new feuds and quarrels like boils from unsound bodies were daily breaking out and continuing the fires of civil Wars like those of hell and Tophet to be everlasting and unquenchable There being no thought of the way of peace but to avoid it § This made him willingly gird as St. Peter did his coat to him that he might be ready to lanch into that dead sea when Christ should bid him come to him He only hoped