had often heard from credible Witnesses it was too usual with the discontented at their Meetings to charge the Church of England with those consequences which they did terminis terminantibus deny as the making of indifferent Ceremonies to be Sacraments and in kneeling at Sacrament to worship the Bread and thereupon be so furious against that reverend posture as though Kneeling were Popery and Sitting Protestancy when the Pope himself ever Communicates sitting These things were only spoken to make our Church odious to ignorant people and being permitted must needs in time destroy our Foundations again and therefore he wished that as of old all Kings and other Christians subscribed to the Conciliary Decrees so now a Law might pass that all Justices of Peace should do so in England and then they would be more careful to punish the depravers of Church Orders In matter of Doctrine he embraced no private and singular opinions as many great men delight to do in vetere viâ novam semitam quaerentes says the Father but was in all points a perfect Protestant according to the Articles of the Church of England always accounting it a spice of pride and vanity to affect singularity in any opinions or Expositions of Scripture without great cause and withal very dangerous to affect precipices as Goats use when they may walk in plain paths In the Quinquarticular Controversie he was ever very moderate but being bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward in Cambridge was addicted to their Sentiments Bishop Vsher would say Davenant understood those Controversies better than ever any man did since St. Austin but He used to say he was sure he had three excellent men of his mind in this Controversie 1. Padre Paulo whose Letter is extant to Heinsius Anno 1604. 2. Thomas Aquinas 3. St. Austin but besides and above them all he believed in his conscience St. Paul was of the same mind likewise yet would profess withal he disliked no Arminian but such a one as reviled and defamed every one that was not so and would often commend Arminius himself for his excellent wit and parts but only tax his want of reading and knowledg in Antiquity and ever held it was the foolishest thing in the world to say the Arminians were Papists when so many Dominicans and Jansenists were no Arminians and so again to say the Anti-Arminians were Puritans or Presbyterians when Ward and Davenant and Prideaux and Brownrig were Anti-Arminians and also stout Champions for Episcopacy and Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian and therefore much commended the moderation of our Church which made not any of these nice and doubtful Opinions the resolved Doctrin of the Church this he judg'd was the great fault of the Tridentine and late Westminster Assemblies But our Church was more ingenuous and left these dark and curious points to the several apprehensions of learned men and extended equal Communion to both There is another Controversie that hath been much vexed in our times concerning the case of Divorce and Marriage afterwards in which it is confessed our Bishop did dislike all those Churches or Polities that were facile to allow separation in Marriage and much more Marriage after yet allowed the question was intricate and such a one as the Pharisees sought to entangle our Saviour withal and that the Church of England had doctrinally determined neither way but for practice only judg'd it better that neither party should marry again after Divorce while the other liv'd and therefore in the Canons of Queen Elizabeth Anno 97 and in 107 Canon of King James Anno 1604. required Caution by sufficient Sureties to that purpose He condemned not other Churches that allowed it otherwise but prefer'd our own Caution before them and for this he wanted not many more reasons than were wrot in a hasty Letter to a Gentleman his Neighbour and published without leave after his death together with his own Answer but it is no credit to conquer the dead says the old Proverb While living He would urge for the indissolubleness of Wedlock the Authority of Divine Institution how God was pleased to make them Male and Female and first one and then two out of one and then again two to become one by a Divine Institution saying Whom God hath once joyned let no man put asunder 2. The Dignity of Marriage which represents the mystical Union that is betwixt Christ and his Church and His Union with our humane nature both which are indissoluble and perpetual 3. The excellency of that love that one ought to bear to the other in Marriage For this cause shall a man leave his Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife therefore it is a stronger relation then between Father and Son but the Son while his Father lives can never cease to be a Son much more while the Wife lives can the Husband cease to be an Husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall cleave to his Wife signifying a glutinous conjunction that will sooner break any where than be parted there 4. The manner of the conjunction one flesh that is according to the Hebrew Idiom one Man which supposes the Woman to be the Body and the Man to be the Soul so that none can part these but He alone that can part Soul and Body 5. And therefore though he conceived Eve did Adam a far greater injury than when a loathed Strumpet does defile the Bed of Marriage yet God nor Adam thought of no rupture in the case but God only pronounced her future sorrow in Conception indeed Paludanus and Navar Roman Casuists maintain if one party be indangered to be drawn into mortal sin by the other it is sufficient occasion to separate and therefore probably would have cited Eve into their Courts and proceeded accordingly against her but from the beginning it was not so 6. In the New Testament he observ'd our Saviour's answer seem'd strange to his own Disciples insomuch that they replied If the case were so it were better not marry at all which shews how they understood him 7. To be sure St. Paul would not allow it in a Bishop but strictly required him to be the Husband of one Wife that is having repudiated one to take no other without exception of any case 8. He was sure he had in the New Testament six places of his side to one against him one only carrying an outward face for it Matth. 19.9 Whosoever shall put away his Wife except it be for fornication and marrieth another committeth adultery But Matth. 5. 32. Mark 10.11 Luke 16.18 all sound another way Whosoever putteth away his Wife and marrieth another committeth adultery Rom. 7.2 The Woman that hath an Husband is bound as long as her Husband lives 1 Cor. 7.10 Let not the Wife depart from her Husband and if she depart let her remain unmarried and again the 27. verse Art thou bound to a Wife seek not to be loosed he held it safer
veritas displiceat seditiosa After his Majestie 's return and restauration of the Church of England he prayed for nothing more in this World than the downfal of Mahomet and the resurrection of the Greek Empire and Church again and would say he thought in his complexion and Religion both that he was the greatest Anti-Ottoman in Europe he was extremely afflicted for poor Hungary the Antimurale or Bulwark of Christendom in the last Invasion and consequently for the horrible division of Christians through the juglings of the Papacy for which reason he could not yet foresee which way possible they should unite under one General who might be able to put an Hook into the jaws of Mahomet and repulse the Grand Signior into Arabia again or to his Scythian Cottages and therefore he never hoped for this happy time till he saw the Papacy fall first which yet he hoped should never be brought to pass by those Infidels though he was very much affected with the words of Musculus spoken above a hundred years ago Ecclesia Sancti Petri sic aedificatur Romae ut ad plenum aedificata sit nunquam citiùsque destruenda sit a Turcis quà m ad finem structurae perducenda a Romanis He took the Pope to be an ill Member of Christendom yet would have no man desire the Devil should pull him down viz. the Turk or Goths and Vandals viz. German Anabaptists and Socinians for fear the change should be for the worse the Italians were a civil people and lovers of learning the Anabaptists of Germany more ignorant and bloudy far than they From this civility of his own temper he did not much love to fix the Title of Antichrist upon the Papacy yet believed that our learned Divines Mr. Mede and Dr. More especially had with that great learning in all kinds so charg'd this crime upon Him that he admired his Champions who daily scatter books of all other matters could permit their supreme Pontife to be so slander'd if it were not true and he thought it frivolous for them to write upon other controversies before they were able to clear themselves before all the world of this Capital one and which being true concluded all other crimes in it Though a reconciliation of all Christians were desireable yet he held it impossible to be effected as long as the Doctrines of their Churches Infallibility and the Popes Supremacy were so obstinately maintain'd The Pope was now become like a Blazing-star dreadful to all Potentates and Rulers and therefore whereas his two great Friends Bishop Vsher and Mr. Mede out of Apocalyptical Principles were of opinion that there would be a general Apostacy and Dagon set upon his feet again he could not believe it For he never feared Christian Princes would be so forsaken of their own understandings and other Counsellers as to resign their own Crowns to adorn a foreign Mitre especially when both Mr. Selden and Sir Robert Cotton had told him they could shew undoubted testimonies that all the Princes in Christendom envied Henry the Eighth's Act in this kind and would gladly have imitated him if they durst But this he imputed to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or want of Magnanimity in them who would not endeavour to recover their own rights in calling Councils presenting to Churches and other Flowers of their Crowns unjustly deteined from them by the See of Rome and therefore ever prayed the Kings of England might still retein their own just Supremacy without giving up their Regalia to any foreign Jurisdiction He thought the increase of Popery ought to be strictly watched not only for the perniciousness of the Tenents of their Heterodox Religion in themselves as being in his opinion Idolatrous and favouring of Rebellion but likewise for the cruelty and sanguinary minds of Papists themselves that whereas all Protestants express a charitable respect towards the souls and bodies of all Papists abhorring all bloudy Persecutions of them on the other side Designant nos oculis ad mortem Papists ever bear bloudy minds towards us and want nothing but power and opportunity to make as many Bonfires in England as they had done formerly and whereas in their excuse some say that the many late Treasons against their Princes were but the private Acts of some particular Papists then he wondred no Pope should ever think fit to send out his Bull to declare that he abhorred them or that none of their learned men should print books licensed by authority wherein they were renounced which he would have given a great deal of money to read The Bishop was an enemy to all separation from the Church of England of whatsoever Faction or Sect But their hypocrisie he thought superlative that allowed the Doctrine and yet would separate for mislike of the Discipline these mens impudence outwent all preceding Histories and he would challenge any to shew him in all Antiquity for 1500 years where any Christian withdrew from the Churches Communion much less rose up against lawful Governors for their imposition of indifferent matters or Ceremonies though in ancient times they imposed more than we do now All that were baptized were presented in White Garments which the Priest charged them to keep white and undefiled to the Coming of the Lord and they used not only the Sign of the Cross but praegustatio mellis lactis intimating that they were now brought to the Land of Canaan flowing with Milk and Honey Standing at Prayers was required upon all Lords-days between Easter and Whitsuntide and Prayer with their hands extended after the similitude of a Cross sometimes which must needs be very tedious and so many other things in St. Austin's time that his complaint is well known Tolerabilior erat Judaeorum conditio yet no Separate Churches were then set up for these things Truth is he thought the permission of Conventicles did shew great irresolution and unsatisfaction in the Truth administred great tentation to Shopkeepers and sedentary people to be tainted with errors and novelties of which the English temper is too receptive people being generally vain and whimsically sceptical and never to be satisfied like Him in the Talmud that would alwayes be questioning why the Sun rose in the East and set in the West to whom it was answered if it should do otherwise he would still complain to know the reason But above all he held we ought to become wise by former experience for Conventicles in Corporations were the Seminaries out of which the Warriours against the King and the Church came and therefore would much admire that if any man coin'd false money it was counted Treason if any man cheated a Pupil or an Orphan he was punisht or if he spread false News he was lyable to suffer for it but if any man publish'd false Divinity to the damnation of souls or perverting the minds of people from their obedience to their Governors there was little or no regard of it Beside he
Apostolical Bishops from others according to the old Story of Austin the Monk who came into England in the time of King Ethelred 600 years after Christ and prest the West Britains of this Island to receive him as their Master and Governour because he was sent by the Bishop of Rome A learned Abbot of Bangor having no fancy to his Message consulted with an Hermit what they should think of this man and his Message from Rome hearken says the Hermit the next time you and your Brethren meet to attend this Austin in Synod observe if he shew any reverence or carry himself humbly when he comes before you but if he salute not and bear himself disdainfully receive him not for he is no Apostle of Christ At the next Synod the jolly Prelat entred among the Monks with a braving courage never stoopt nor vail'd his head but usurped the highest place in the Congregation as the Roman Legate at this the Britains disliked his Arrogancy and would not receive his Message Yet our good Bishop's humility appeared not only in his outward demeanour and verbal salutation which he knew were often forced and more then was required and that Rivers were not deepest where they overflow but in their own Channels but in paying all due respect to the deserts of others without reflecting upon his own perfections therefore it was not his fashion to undervalue other mens learning or magnify his own Upon frequent occasions he would confess his want of Eastern Languages but in such studies wherein he was conversant would by private letters give great help to many writers of books who have confessed in their returns to him that the books were not theirs but his and thereupon would have had him to have own'd them or at least to have suffered an honorable mention of himself in those books which he would in no sort permit that as Camerarius said of Melanchton he was like a Nightingale that with his singing sweetly affected all others but would not endure to hear of it himself Notwithstanding this great civility and sweetness of temper towards all people generally we must acknowledg a vanity and defect in all humane accomplishments and perfections it being not possible that almost 80 years should be spent in this Age of humane infirmity and that any mans actions should be all fine flour without mixture of coarser Meal and Bran to say so were not to commend but to flatter not truly to represent but to dawb our Bishop would often severely censure himself and said he best knew his own heart to be of sinners the chief most unthankful to God for many Divine Talents confer'd upon Him and most wanting especially in many grains of meekness and forbearance to his Neighbours Indeed he was by nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most great wits are irritable and subject to great eruptions of anger oftentimes especially if he had met with bold and arrogant but slow parts St. Hierom acknowledges the like harsh disposition in himself and compares himself to an angry horn'd Beast and says that all the strict Discipline of Bethlehem and Watchings of Arabia could not mortifie this indecent passion in him God Almighty permitting these most holy and learned men sometimes to betray themselves in such palpable weaknesses does sufficiently convince us that humane infirmity cleaves to humane nature and absolute perfection belongs only to the Divine Yet I will add that as he was very irritable and apt to be offended so he was exceeding placable and ready to be appeased too generous he was to be vindicative and therefore though he would chide earnestly yet he ever censur'd mildly like the Apostles who had fiery tongues but gentle hands besides it was his judgment that if any man asked unreasonable things it was much better to chide him away from his house for his fault than give him good words and afterwards not do it minus negatur qui negatur celeriter and would alwayes advise other people if any thing troubled them to speak it out and never to retain a dry discontent and for the most part made his passion subservient to virtuous ends by his great natural inclination to anger becoming far more active and zealous in the carrying on his great projectments for piety and charity For any other censures of being illiberal and covetous which are so frequently and unduely cast upon Divines examin his life and few men will appear more incontaminat and free In bad times when he had lost his best Incoms and like the Widow of Sarepta had but an handful of Meal and a Cruze of Oyl left for himself and his Family yet he then thought Elias was worthy of one Cake out of it and accordingly has given a distressed friend twenty pounds at a time and would always argue that Times of persecution were the most proper seasons of charity and that charity was oftentimes the happy means to preserve us from suffering for Tyrants more commonly oppress the rich than their inopious Enemies as the Historian observed in the days of Nero Alium Thermae alium Horti trucidarunt many men might have fared better but for delicious Gardens and sweet Baths no man was safe that had a sumptuous Building or an envied Possession and therefore he believed it a prudent as well as a religious act in the Primitive Church at Jerusalem to surrender their Estates to the holy Apostles for pious uses rather than to leave them to a violent extension of prophane persons in a short time afterwards When he was made a Bishop no man was less lucripetous he desired to hold nothing in Commendam he renewed all his Leases for years and not for lives and upon very moderate Fines and spent a very considerable share thereof upon the repairs of his Cathedral often applying to the Church what the Orator said of the Common-wealth Non minori mihi est curae qualis futura sit Respublica quam qualis est hodie while he lived besides his constant charity to the poor of Lichfield City he enquired out distressed Cavaliers in his Diocess and lent them 50 or 100 l. for a year or two upon their own Bill or Bond and afterwards frequently gave it to them And thus he did sometimes to persons of a differing Religion with whom he held no Christian Communion but in this one thing of giving and never looking to receive again He reckoned that charitable Expences left to the power and managment of Executors were more theirs than the Founders and therefore was resolved to dispense his own in his life time and not be like the Whale that affords no Oyl till she die and must disgorge it To several Colledges in Cambridge he gave liberal summs of money to Clare-Hall fifty pounds to St. John's fifty pounds to Trinity Colledge he added a peculiar building call'd Bishops Hostle which cost him 1200 l. and appointed that with the yearly Rents of those Chambers Books should be
having such near relation I have found out most principal Texts for them both this year out of the same Chapter for Easter day Ver. 24. whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death For Whitsunday in that notable portion of the story which I have read unto you And I told you upon the last great solemnity that Whitsunday was principally ordained for this end to make Easter day famous over all the world But the principal fruits of this day are three if we may comprehend an Ocean of graces in so small a number In the zeal of our Prayers we passed them over in the Morning Collect and that Collect extracted them from the Epistle and Gospel appointed Thus you may perceive that the Service of the Church of England is the treasure of my observations The Collect runs upon these three Points Teaching Illumination Consolation God which upon this day hath taught the hearts of thy faithful people for heavenly Doctrine began to be made common to all the world from this day Yet many hear the Word but most unprofitably therefore it follows that God hath sent us the light of his holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things And many have the benefit of true Doctrine and the help of Illumination but with much sorrow and persecution therefore the Holy Ghost came down also that we might rejoyce in his holy comfort Thus far the contents of that short Prayer have helpt me The Gospel for the day runs altogether upon the last branch upon Consolation I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter The Epistle falls upon the two former upon Doctrine and Illumination and that in two sensible miracles For Doctrine that a sound came from heaven as of a mighty wind to foreshew that the sound of the Word should go forth into all Lands for Illumination that cloven tongues appeared and sate upon them as it were of fire The noise was as a Trumpet to wake the World the firy Tongues as so many lights to let them see their visitation Thus the Holy Ghost is presented to both the senses to the Ear as to the sense of faith to the Eye as to the sense of love The Ear is the ground of the Word and Doctrine and that gives the first admittance to Faith and therefore the Holy Ghost began his operation there according to my Text and that in these particulars to be considered 1. That God caused a sound to be heard upon the descending of the Holy Spirit 2. The manner of the sound is resembled to a Wind. 3. To a sudden wind 4. To a rushing mighty wind 5. It was from heaven 6. It filled all the house where they were sitting All these particulars are worthy of my labour and your attention That there came a sound from heaven at the mission of the Holy Ghost is the first thing remarkable A sound first to call in them that were without Secondly To demonstrate the Office of them that were within As the chiming of Bells calls us together to Church so an audible sound from heaven was a warning to the Jews to flock to that place where the Apostles were gathered together The Master of the Feast in the Gospel sent forth his Servants and invited the Guests and bad them be told what preparation he had made for their coming so the men of Jerusalem had as sensible an invitation to draw them to the great Feast of the Gospel as if a Canon had been discharged in their Ear. Or if they were yet unprepared to taste of such Manna as fell from heaven into their lap yet the Lords doings were so palpable before them that their consciences must be extremely stupified with malice if they made an ill interpretation of others that were then filled from above with the great power of God And indeed Oecumenius says that the sound did pierce the ears of all that were in the City that such as were curious to know the reason might come and see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the open manifestation of the miracle might preserve it from calumny But you will say it did not gain the good opinion of the Jews for all the gift of Tongues had such a forerunner not vox clamantis but sonus intonantis not the voice of a Crier but a peal of thunder to bring it into the world yet the people did disgrace it with a vile imputation of drunkenness True it proved as ill as could be expected but says St. Chrysostome if they said the Apostles were full of new Wine when these signs concurred what would they have said without them The most graceful and melodious sounds in the world are lost to deaf men and though a clamour and a cry from heaven were come down as it is in my Text yet it moved not those that like the deaf Adder had stopped their ears The Serpent in that place is called in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Antiphrasis or the contrary because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unperswaded Creature all Art and Charming is spent in vain it will not listen it will not mitigate its venomous wrath and so the Translator Apollinarius says upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when the Adder is mischievously angry for the time of his violent anger and while that lasts he is stark deaf though he can hear by nature So such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. i. 16. Disobedient and reprobate to every good work though they have the sense of hearing by nature yet when they are violently set upon infidelity and stubbornness they give no more attention to the sound that comes from heaven than do the stones of the Temple When Stephen preached so divinely to the Jews that the heavens opened in the time of his Sermon Acts vii 56. as if way had been made for the Angels and Saints to be his Auditors even then when the gates of heaven stood wide open at the grace of his words they that should have given him best attention stopped their ears and ran upon him But the sin of them that will not hear let it lie upon their own head they cannot say but there hath been a Trumpet among them to awake them from the sleep of sin The sound which God hath sent forth is shrill and loud to call in those that are without And he that hath ears c. But secondly the Spirit came in a very audible sound to declare what a door of utterance should be opened from thenceforth to the Messengers of Christ That their sound should go out into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the World Rom. x. 18. The Gospel preached to every creature under heaven Col. i. 23. How many were in that lamentable condition like the Disciples at Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were an Holy Ghost Angels themselves began to be Preachers when a door of entrance was
you love to hear the noise of it and which is more to hear them taxt And here is the difference between the Usurer and the Preacher Every Usurer would have no more such sinners as himself and the Preacher would have none at all But if Riches be your blessing O turn not your blessing to a curse And what greater curse than to build a house and not possess it to plant a Vineyard and not eat of the fruit of it To provide Cloathing for the body and never wear it Thus Haman cast about to put the Kings Robes on his shoulders but the Gallows prevented him Gehazi was furnished with two change of Raiments but his body was made unfit to wear one by Leprosie And Achan had provided a Babylonish Garment but it proved as fatal as his winding sheet Faithless sinner could not God provide for him except he stole a Rayment Why the Gibeonites came to him in pieced cloaths rent and thread-bare from the next Villages and his Apparel decayed not but he came to the Gibeonites in new furniture from beyond the Red Sea and the vaste Wilderness Why should he covet more change of Raiment if one Attire were so constant that no use could consume it no Moth could fret it What glory were it to be like a Peacock says Tertullian Toties mutando quoties movendo as often as she moves her self her feathers cast a new beauty and apparition The Fowls of the Air renew but certain feathers the Trees do not cast their bark only the accursed Serpent changeth his skin at appointed revolutions Jam positis novus exuviis nitidâque juventâ c. And this holy people the Children of Israel wore their Garments forty years like their skin and bone and Achan loathed it for continuance which some devotion would have kept as a Relique for the strangeness Is there any of the Israel of God among us that hath enticed strange fashions and Babylonish Garments to be brought into our Land What a question is that They do not hide it in their Tent like Achan they dare profess their names it is their boasting to have brought comliness into the Kingdom the Court admires it and yet I could adjudge with King Artaxerxes his Gardener to be the better Common-wealths man that had the Art to make Pomgranates fairer What Suetonius spake of Caligula in high disdain is become a decency in our Land Neque civili habitu neque patrio neque virili neque humano vestitus est First not modest apparel that is worn out of use nor according to his own Country fashion Who knows what that is in England Nor in the Attire of his own Sex we are come to that one Sex changes into the fashion of another Nay he went not like a reasonable man but like a beast This only remains from Gods judgment that like King Nebuchadonosor at last we should be cloathed like beasts and Eagles Anacharses a Scythian reproved for his blunt language despised the Elegancies of Athens with that Elogy Anacharses speaks Solaecisms in Athens and the Athenians speak Solaecisms in Scythia Such a Critick as he was in the Tongues such an esteem ought we to have of Rayment Every Fashion is an ornament in its own soil Achans Babylonish Garment had been unseemly and exotick in the Land of Jury And since cloathing is but the covering of our shame to be so curious and divers to hide our shame is silken hypocrisie Our Saviour put forth a Parable that Solomon in all his Royalty was not cloathed like a Lilly of the field The comparison will not enter into the eye of man that the wild Flower to day sprouting and to morrow in the Furnace was of such Orient colours as the Kings Robes But do you mark it Modest Nature had arrayed the one and Luxury the other it is Solomon not on worky days but in all his Royalty not Elias or John Baptist in their rough skins no our very bodies are comlier than the souls of beasts but the King of Israel sumptuous Cap-a-pe that was not cloathed like a Lilly of the field Give me leave to step aside into one question and I will return again Though Achan should have burnt his golden fleece in the flames of Jericho may nothing be preserved for the use of God out of the dens of pollution May not a comly Garment be put on at our Liturgy yea though it were worn in Babylon Quomodo scriptum est Shall we put it to that and so make a Canon Saul disgraced himself as basely as if he had sought Asses again because he preserved Agag and the fattest of the sheep of Amalech for a sacrifice and Achan was a common mischief that gathered up the goods of Canaan all this is true but it was done by an especial word of God and that will make no rule as the School confesseth Again Moses employed the Censors of Core and Dathan to make golden Plates for the Ark the Instruments of the rebellious for the use of Sanctity This also is too slender to make a rule for it was done by the appointment of the Lord. But when no particular revelation dream or vision is sent from God must we needs do as the Roman Army did when it won Tarentum Infaelices Divos populo Tarentino relinquamus touch none of the Gods that kept their Enemies City Or may not the Church be judge May it not spare or destroy Yes I will prove it by the Book In the first of Ezra Cyrus brought forth the Vessels of the Lord which Nebuchadonosor had put in the house of his Gods even those did he restore to Shezbazzar and Shezbazzar brought them for the service of the Lord to Jerusalem The wearing of our Surpless and other holy Robes is the thing I aim at for the comliness I call heaven to witness Such white Robes the Saints wear Apoc. xv Such our Saviour seemed to wear at his Transfiguration Mat. xvii And such alone and not the Bells and Ephod the High Priest put on to go into the Sanctum Sanctorum Lev. xvi 4. And all this the Fathers approved in the Primitive Church some of whom came so near our Saviour that almost they touched the hem of his Garment None of this is gainsaid by the Learned but the blame is that they have been polluted in a strange Land like sweet roots steep'd in Wormwood pleasant enough of themselves but they have lost their rellish Well I told you the Church of God entertain'd their holy Vessels again when the Heathen had quaffed in them to their Idols and such a Church it was that depended nicely upon Ceremonies and bodily defilings The Devil used the Scripture is the Scripture the worse for that Parrats and chattering birds are taught sometime to speak our Language shall I like speaking the worse and turn silenced Minister What shall become of all the rich endowments which the Church received in Popery Shall Superstition be bountiful and Reformation