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
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
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
not convert gain-sayers and if he could not perswade them yet he would pitty and pray for them His Judgment as to the foundations and solemn administration of the Reformed Religion His fixedness in there formed Religion settled in the Church of England and so in other Reformed Churches which were for the main consonant to it was such that he was unmoveable even to a martyrdom Never more offended as I have sometimes heard him express his displeasure than with those men that affected to be Hybridae Religionis Mungrils or Mephibosheths in Religion and halters in opinion a kinde of ambiguous and dough-baked Protestants that are afraid to own their discommunion and distance from the Church politick or Court of Rome even so far as they see by Scripture and antiquity that it hath evidently divorced from communion with the word of God and Institutions of Jesus Christ walking contrary to the judgement and practice of the Primitive Churches To both which he always appealed in the grand concerns of Religion not allowing that pollicy which incroached upon truth and piety though in matters of outward Rites and Ceremonies he allowed latitudes and liberty without breach of charity It was a maxime I have heard him use That nothing was less to be stickled for or against than matters of reremony which were as shadows not substances of Religion As they did not build so they could not burthen if kept within their bounds as was done in Englands Reformation § Yea he had so far both pity and charity for those plain and honest-hearted people of the Roman communion as either their errors presumed by them to be truths or their ignorance in some things not fundamental did not betray them either to unbelief or self-presumption or to final impenitence or to immorality or uncharitableness If there were hope to close the â—ad breaches of these Western Churches no man was more able and willing to have poured balme into them But he feared the gangreen of Jesuitism had festred and inflamed things to an uncurableness which he oft deplored § His temper is latter dispute among reformed Divines As for the differences of other parties in some opinions which then began to grow very quick and warm in England as well as the Netherlands he seemed always most conformed to and satisfied with the judgement of his learned and reverend friends Bishop Vsher Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward who were great Disciples of St. Austin and Prosper in their contests against the Pelagians Not that he could indure no difference among learned and godly men in opinions especially sublime and obscure without dissentions and distance in affection but he wished all men to look well to the humility and sincerity of their hearts whose heads were most prone and able to manage points of controversie the heat of which is ready to make the fullest souls to boil over to some immoderation and study of sides He thought that Scripture it self was in some points left us less clear and positive as to mysterious not necessary verities that Christians might have wherewith to exercise both humility in themselves and charity towards others § He very much venerated the first worthy Reformers of Religion at home and abroad yet was he not so addicted to any one Master as not freely to use that great and mature judgement which he had so as to sift and separate between their easie opinions and native passions as men and their solider probations and sober practices as great and good Divines He suffered not prejudices against any mans person or opinion to heighten animosities in him against either He hoped every good man had his retractations either actual or intentional that died in true faith and repentance however all had not time to write their retractations as St. Austin did § If against any thing next sin and gross errors he had an antipathy and impatience it was against those unquiet and pragmatick spirits which affect endless controversies varieties and novelties in Religion that hereby they may carry on that study of sides and parties in which they glory and under which skreen they hope to advance their private interests and politick designs This he saw by experience was commonly the Scorpions tail and sting of those opinions which at their first broaching and variating from the pristine and Catholick Doctrine might seem to have the face of women modest and harmless but in time grew very pernicious to Church and State When the clouds of nonconformity which was formerly reduced to an hand breadth in the Church of England began now His constancy in the late vertigious times partly by a spirit or breath of super-conformity and chiefly by those vehement winds which blew from the North to cover the whole English heaven with blackness and to threaten a great storm of blood which after followed yet did this excellent person then hold to his former principles and practice not because he was a Bishop but because he was a judicious and consciencious man where he saw Scripture and Law bound him to duty and to that constancy of his judgement in matters of Religion both essential and circumstantial substantial and ornamental which became a wise and honest man He was too ponderous a person to be tossed too and fro with every wind of doctrine or discipline nor was he ever either so scared or in so merry and frolick a sit as to dance after the Scottish pipe he had learned another and a better tune as from the Catholick Church in general so particularly from this Church and State the Princes and Prelates the Parliments and Convocations of the Reformed Church of England now too old to affect any new jigg after an hundred years most flourishing State the wisdom gravity and majesty of which he thought was not now either to be either disciplined or reformed or chastened by the pedantique authority pretended necessity or obtruded insolency of any Church or Nation under heaven much less by any party in it self which was less than the authority of a full and free Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons counselled as to matters of Religion by a full and free Convocation or Synod which he thought the most laudable way of managing Religion and most probable by doing good impartially to be blest of God and approved by good men He saw the Church and State of England had been sufficient every way for it self heretofore while united and was then happiest when it enjoyed its own peaceable and Parliamentary Counsels and results without any others partial dictates which were as improsperous as importune and impertinent § For the Liturgie His esteem of the liturgy of the Church of England or publick form of Prayer and solemn Administration in the Church of England though he needed a set form as little as any yet he had a particular great esteem of it 1. For the honor and piety of its Martyrly Composers who enduring such a fiery trial
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
was The publique loss in his death and worthy to be beheld and enjoyed by us longer in the land of the living yet now he is as the flower goodliness of all flesh cut down withered and vanished hidden from all mortal eyes you are now to look upon him only by reflection backward for forward he is invisible Another potent Eliah taken out of your sight another reverend Father that hath left this Orphane and divided Church another wise man and faithful Counsellor withdrawn from a foolish nation and distracted people from whom God hath taken away his peace Another righteous man taken from the evil to come another great Prophet who could not but foresee and foretel the evils that would as St. Paul speaks follow a sinful generation after his departure § This is another of the prime chariots and horsemen of our Israel of our excellent Schollars Divines Preachers and Bishops which God hath taken out of an evil world after Bishop Vsher Bishop Hall Bishop Morton and others of later years who are sufficient to make an everlasting divorce between Prelacy and Popery that odious and unjust conjunction of modern calumny put upon the reformed Bishops of England all these died as in the true faith so in the foresight and fear of much future miseries impending over us for though we have drank deep of the cup of the wrath of God yet they justly feared we were not yet at the dregs If God heretofore punished the sins of King Lords and Bishops doubtless he hath a quarrel with Parliaments Presbyters and People For his wrath is not yet turned away but his hand is stretched out still against the Nation If fire break forth to consume the green trees what shall become of those that are dry and sear twice dead and thrice plucked up by the root from their Kings from their Parliaments and from their Reformed Religion to all which they were more than once solemnly engaged And how can we be sit for the peace of God or men This holy Bishop went not as the envious and evil world designed with sorrow to his grave upon his own account but rather with joy and blessed hope he knew the world was bad enough at best but now he thought it stark naught and mad without sense or shame for sin even at its worst Novissima pessima tempora His only fear and grief was least the Ark of the Reformed Religion once well settled in England should at length be taken captive again by the stratagems of the enemies and carried either to Babylon or the house of Dagon to popular and fanatick confusion or to Romish Idolatry and superstition this hope yet he had in the bottom of his fears next Gods mercy that fince the most crying and scarlet sins were not the vote fact or after-assent of either the most or the best people of the Nation that perhaps the Lord would yet return to England in his favour and require the vengeance due to his justice and to the scandal of the Christian and Reformed Religion from those who were the chief in evil counsels and actions violently obtruded upon the Nation to its great trouble and misery § The mourning due to his Funeral If tears were venial in any prviate funeral when Church and State lie a dying they might be allowed in this before us but not for his sake who is at rest and of whom we may say Non illi vita erepta sed mors donata as Tully of Crassus slain before the civil wars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Naz. he is a great gainer by death but for our selves as Christ told the weeping women both as to those evils that are continuing and encreasing upon us and for these publick losses of so worthy a person in whom as Nazianzen says of St. Basil the great Every man good and bad receives damage the first of the good example they love the second of that good example they need § And if as in other things some men are pleased to shew themselves Jews that is faithless and cruel to fellow-Christians so in this you as the better Israel of God list so to imitate that Judaick custom of rending your garments truly no ceremony is more agreable to Symbolize or to set forth our sad condition The sad rents in England religious and civil at his death whose rents and breaches are not in two peices but as many as the Prophet Ahiah tore Jeroboams new garment into and if onely our civil and outward garments were rent as to secular liberties estates peace and laws it were tolerable But our inward garment that should be nearer and dearer to us than our skins even Christs coat yea his skin nay his mystical body his Church this is torn into more than a dozen peices even our religion yea our very reformation is rent into rags nay our rags pretend to be our reformations and our Schismaticks would seem our Seamsters and our renders will needs be our reformers and repairers A condition of Church and State so deplorable that it requires rending of our hearts from sin more than of our garments and weeping with tears of blood as Nazianzen speaks § In the civil wars of England hererofore yet this comfort there was that they had the same religion They could say Amen to the same prayers though the bodies fought their souls did not The misery of our miseries is that our best medicine which should heal our civil wounds is become our greatest malady Our Oyl is turned to vinegar and our Balme of Gilead into aqua fortis or the water of jealousy Civil scratches and wounds will in time heal but religious divisions fester and grow ulcerous every one being ambitious in this to be constant in their zealous cruelty to the adverse party the truth is our wounds are so deep so rankerous and incurable that nothing but a miracle of mercy can help or recover us many have essayed to heal the hurt of the daughter of my people but slightly partially and superficially as Physitians of no value the more we trusted to them as King Asa or spent our estates upon them as the woman in the Gospel the worse we are O great Physitian of souls do thou undertake our cure to whose omnipotent mercy nothing is impossible § In the last place Conclusion of gratitude to the Societies of the Temples in the Bishops behalf I am to close this sad obsequie and Christian Solemnity with return of many thanks to these honorable Societies First in the Name of the departed this great Prophet this good Eliah this venerable Bishop Next in the name of all his reverend Brethren Coepiscopi yet surviving reliquiae Danaum atque immitis Achillis Thirdly in the name of all worthy Ministers that are not Acephalists and rudely Autepiscopal walking Antipodes to all Antiquity and themselves heretofore Fourthly in the name of all learned and ingenuous men in both the Vniversities and all the Nation