none but such as rejoyce at your destruction We may observe in Horses that after a stumble for some paces they go better and quicker than before Some impute this to their fear to be beaten and desire to avoid it others to their generosity to make amends for their former fault with double diligence 56. Be not like the Horse and Mule which hath no understanding Psalm 32. 9. that is do not imitate them in their brutish head-strongness Yet be like the Horse and Mule in their commendable conditions as creatures far above Pismires and Lillies imitate those generous principles which the instinct of Nature hath put into them Recover what is past in your stumbling by your future activity in going the faster in the path of truth and righteousness 57. To conclude there is for the present a great Gulph and distance betwixt you and us in our opinions Indeed though we should desire it we dare not approach nearer unto you in point of judgment S. Paul saith even of his brother S. Peter Gal. 2. 5. To whom we gave place no not for an hour that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you We may not yield to you no not a hairs breadth We have already in stating the Controversie betwixt us drawn as near as we can without betraying the truth prejudicing Gods cause and our own consciences And having gone to the very marches and out-bounds of the truth we there stand on tiptoes ready to embrace you if you come to us and no otherwise 58. But as for difference in affection seeing we conceive your error not such as intrencheth on salvation because not denying but deferring Baptism and onely in the out limbs not vitals of Religion wherein a latitude may and must be allowed to dissenting brethren we desire that herein the measure of our love may be without measure unto you Lightning often works wonders when it breaketh the Sword it doth not so much as bruise the Scabbard Charity is a more heavenly fire and therefore may be more miraculous in its operations You shall see that our love to you as it doth detest and desires to destroy your errours so it will at the same time it will safely keep and preserve your erroneous persons 59. For mine own particular because I have been challenged how justly God and my own conscience knoweth for some morosenes in my behaviour towards some dissenting brethren in my Parish this I do promise and God giving me grace I will perform it Suppose there be one hundred paces betwixt me and them in point of affection I will go ninety nine of them on condition they will stir the one odd pace to give them an amicable meeting But if the Legs of their Souls be so lame or lazy or sullen as not to move that one pace towards our mutual love we then must come to new propositions Let them but promise to stand still and make good their station let them not go backward and be more imbitter'd against me than they have been and of the hundred paces in point of affection God willing I le go twice fifty to meet them As for matter of judgment I shall patiently and hopefully expect the performance of Gods promise in my Text when to those which are otherwise minded in the matter of Infants Baptisme God will reveal even this unto them Amen FINIS PERFECTION AND PEACE Delivered in a SERMON preached in the Chappel of the Right Worshipful Sir ROBERT COOK at DYRDANS By THO. FVLLER B. D. LONDON Printed by Roger Norton for Iohn Williams at the Crown in S. Pauls Church-yard 1653. TO The Hono ble and truly Religious GEORGE BERKELEY Sole Son and Heir to the Right Honourable GEORGE Lord BERKELEY c. SIR WHen I look on the Crest of your ancient Arms A Mitre powdered w th Crosses I read therein an abridgment of the Devotion of those darker dayes the Mitre shewing your Ancestors actions in Peace the Cross their atchievements in the Holy War the Mitre their doings at home the Cross their darings abroad Yea I fancie to my self each ancient Lord Berkly like one of the Israelites at the walling of Jerusalem Neh. 4. 17. With a Trowel in one hand and a Sword in the other We alwayes find him either fighting or founding either in a Battel or at the building of some Religious Fabrick as besides others the intire Abbey at Bristol afterwards converted into a Cathedral was solely founded by one of that Family This was the Devotion of those dayes wherein the world knew no better and scarce any other Since the Reformation your Noble House hath not had less heat for having more light Your Charity hath not been extinguished but regulated not drained dry but derived in righter channels and flowing with a clearer stream free from the mud of superstition As for your particular that your ancient Crest is worthily born by you the Mitre speaking you a Patron of Learning the Crosses a Practicer of Religion Qualities which encouraged me to present this small Treatise unto you Acceptance is more then it can expect pardon being as much as it doth deserve being so long in coming so short when come But because it had its first Being by your Command it hopes to have its well-being by your Countenance Should I desire so many Lords of your Family hereafter as heretofore have flourished in a direct line by desiring a particular Happiness to your House I should wish a general mischief to mankind that men should live so many years in sin sorrow before the coming of the necessary and comfortable day of Judgment My prayer therefore shall be That the lustre of your House may continue with the lasting of the World so long as God will permit the badness thereof in that honourable Equipage of your Ancestors May Perfection here and Peace hereafter light on you your vertuous Lady and hopeful issue which is the daily desire of Your Honours most bounden Servant THO. FULLER PERFECTION AND PEACE PSAL. 37. 37. Mark the Perfect behold the Vpright for the end of that man is Peace THIS and the 73. Psalm are of the same subject wherein David endeavours to cure an Epidemical disease with which the best Saints and servants of God are often distempered Observe in this Disease the nature danger cause and cure thereof The Nature namely fretting fits of the soul at the consideration of the constant peace plenty and prosperity of wicked men The Danger thereof It causeth the Consumption of the spirit and is destructive to the health of the soul Yea when this disease comes to the Paroxism the height and heat thereof it becometh dishonourable to God aspersing and be-libelling him as if he wanted Goodness and would not or Power and could not or Justice and doth not order matters better then they are The Cause thereof it proceedeth from a double defect in men 1 Want of Faith to trust in God 2 Want of Patience to wait on God
and not cover it he was to pay the owner for the losse of those his cattel which fell into it Parents having opened a pit of original corruption by the sinfulnesse of their nature if they labour not to cover it again as much as in them lies by using the ordinance God hath appointed for the same shall not the souls of their children if finally falling into that pit be heavily required at their hands Yea shall man be carelesse and cruel where God hath been so kind and careful in his instituting of Baptism Rom. 6. 3. That we may be Baptized into Jesus Christ his death as it followeth vers 6. that the body of sin may be destroyed To conclude Infants having the body of sin as well as adult persons and Baptism being appointed for the destruction thereof such parents are wanting to their own duty undervalue Gods ordinance and are cruel to the souls of the flesh of their body that deny Baptism unto Infants CHAP. XIV The Sixth Reason drawn from the constant Practice of Christian Churches in all Ages what credit is to be given to a Primitive Custome I Shall now be challenged by such who herein dissent in judgement from me for breach of promise starting from my own principles that having promised Reasons out of Scripture I flie now to Church-Practice and Ancient Tradition Wherefore to vindicate my self which is far more considerable the Truth herein I will first prove by Gods assistance by Reason out of Scripture that the Practice of the Catholique Church in all Places and at all Times especially in such matters wherein nothing appears contrary in Gods Word obligeth all conscientious Christians to the observation thereof And in the next Chapter we wil shew that the Baptizing of Infants hath been the uninterrupted Custome of the Church Be it premised that if we look on Customes simply in themselves we shall find them generally like the men of Sodom not ten good ones amongst the many thousands of them For what is Custome but the practice of most men time out of mind Now seeing most men yea all men by Nature Gen. 6. 5. have the imaginations of their hearts evil and that not for a day week or year but as the Text saith continually no wonder if Customes be commonly wicked Yea such errours and vices which at the first are soft and supple pliable to Reproof and sensible of Refutation contract an hardnesse by custome in continuance of time yea get an incrustation and such scales over them that they become impenetrable to Scripture and Reason brought against them And as Lahan deceived plain-dealing Jacob in his Marriage Gen. 29. 26. by pleading the custome of the Country so it is confessed that too many in all Ages in matters both of faith and fact have alledged Custome to Patronize their erroneous opinions and injurious practises But all this ought not to beget in us a neglect of such Customes which like Melchisedec are Heb. 7. 3. without father without mother without discent whose first original cannot be found out as practised in the Church time out of mind no remembrance or record extant to the contrary Now as Melchisedec in the same place is said to have neither beginning of dayes and what necessarily followeth thence nor end of life so it is but just and equal that such Ancient Customes in the Church which never had memorable Rise should never have Fall therein but that such which probably began at the first should constantly be continued till the last coming of our Saviour Here I plead not for such mis-shapen Customes which either run up all in length narrow and slender which though long in use never extended to any wideness in the Christian World or else so low and thick they only spread in bredth as many Popish Customes generally but not anciently used but never shot up to the just stature of Primitive Antiquity We only defend such wel-grown Customes which I call square ones the form of firmness and stability whose height and bredth are well proportioned put in ure by Christians at all times and in all places conceiving we can demonstrate it by reason from Scripture that such Customes must be presumed grounded on the word and will of God For proof whereof we produce Gods promise and Lo I am with you always unto the end of the world Amen Mat. 28. 20. Every operative word herein deserves our serious consideration I am with you unto the end I am A verb of the present joyned with words of the future tense to shew Gods Instantaneous assistance in every moment of extremity Psal 46. 1. God is our strength and refuge a very present help in trouble With you This cannot be meant only of the Disciples personally none of them living to the end of the world seeing John himself the surviver of the whole Jury died about the year of our Lord 102. It is therefore meant extensively of the Disciples as they were an immortal corporation With you Selves and successours persons and posterity As Christ John 17. 20. Did not pray for these alone so here he did not promise to these alone but to them also which should believe on him through their word These words To be with you import not only a promise of protecting them from all dangers but also of directing them in all doctrines necessary to be believed and practised for their salvation And this promise being made not so much to the particular persons as to the collective body of the Church is not so effectually performed to every individual Christian as to the Universal Church which amounteth from them all We confesse that notwithstanding the foresaid promise of protection and direction many good men have been guilty of great errours and have also fallen by Gods permission and just punishment of their sins into grievous dangers However Divine goodnesse so doubleth his Files about his Church in general that he will not suffer the same to be universally infected in all Ages with any one dangerous Errour And therefore a Church Custome in all times and places must be presumed conformable to the will of God because were it erroneous it were utterly inconsistent with that solemn promise which God hath passed to his Church to be with them unto the worlds end Such who on the contrary side are highly opinioned of their private Judgements and will not confide in the Universal Customes of the Church I know not whether therein they do shew more want of Charity in condemning so many Christians at once or plenty of pride in over-prizing their own judgements or store of profanenesse in doubting yea denying the performance of Gods promise so solemnly made of his protecting presence in the Church who surely will dispatch and destroy an errour therein before it grow up to be so long liv'd as to become a Custome What a high valuation S. Paul set on Church Customes appears by his expression 1 Cor. 11. 16. But if any man
which we ought to follow and vainly strive to follow those his actions which we ought to admire Oh that we all would learn of him Mat. 11. 29. to be meek and lowly of heart to think more humbly of our selves and more charitably of others I say would we could learn this thing of Christ and leave such things to Christ which were personal in him and not precedential to us Object Had Christ in his judgement allowed and approved the baptizing of Infants surely he would have baptized such children which Mark 10. were brought unto him whereas his omission thereof plainly argues Christs disaffection to the same Answ Christ in his own person Baptized none at all as we read John 4. 2. an office improper for him to perform How unfit had it been for our Saviour thus to Baptize those Infants I Jesus Baptize this Infant into the Name of Jesus If S. Paul accounted it beneath his place to Baptize 1 Cor. 1. 17. For Christ sent me not to Baptize but to preach the Gospel How much was the ministration thereof too mean for our Saviour Indeed Christ came in all humility to be a pattern of patience unto us and condescended to mean imployments as John 13. 5. the washing of his Disciples feet yet alwayes he observed though not state decency in all his actions and stood much though not on the pomp on the propriety of what he performed as here in his declining to Baptize any When a Lord hath signed a Letter with his own hand it is usual with him to consign the sealing thereof to his Secretary or some other servant so when Christ had instituted Baptism and with his own hand confirmed the soveraign vertue of that Sacrament it well befitted his dignity to command and his disciples duty to perform the administration thereof Object Grant that Christ for the reasons by you alledged concluded it unfitting for himself to Baptize those Infants yet had he approved Pedo-baptism in his own judgement he would have designed some of his Disciples for the doing thereof This not done we may infallibly infer his dislike of the same Answ A negative argument of this nature is of no validity No mention is made of these Infants Baptizing Ergo they were not Baptized we may observe a gradation in the Evangelists relating this story Luke 18. 17. mentioneth their blessing only without any manner of gesture at all used by our Saviour unto them Mat. 19. 15. only takes notice that Christ laid his hands on them and departed thence Mark 10. 16. registreth all three remarkable actions He took them up in his arms laid his hands on them and blessed them Saint John addeth chap. 21. 21. And there are also many other things which Jesus did which are not written amongst which for ought appears to the contrary the Baptizing of these infants might be one of them However grant they were not formally and solemnly Baptized yet we may observe Baptism consisteth of two parts the application of water which we may call the body and the impression of the blessing which we may terme the soul of Baptism The later which indeed was the principal was here conferr'd on babes which shews them capable of the other as being the lesse Spiritual part of the Sacrament Object Sacraments ought not to be prostituted to profane persons Mat. 7. 6. cast not pearls before swine But many Infants are impious and profane therefore they ought not to be Baptized Answ This Objection may with equal advantage be also enforced against the Baptizing of men arrived at years of discretion many of them are profane in their hearts though they cunningly dissemble the same Hypocrites will never be kept out of the Church Be the doors thereof barr'd and bolted never so close they will creep in at the windows yea through the chinks and crevesses thereof As for Infants Baptism ought to be denyed unto them if they manifested any profanenesse Till which time charity commands us to believe them not Swine but Lambs and capable of the Sacrament Object Children are unable to discharge an essential requisite to Baptism Seeing what equipage Baptism is martialled by Christs own Commission Mat. 28. 19 20. 1. Go ye therefore and teach all Nations 2. Baptizing in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost c. 3. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Here we have the safe and sure position of Baptism as God himself ordered it It is placed in the middle betwixt adouble teaching one in the front and another in the rear thereof a precedent teaching must usher in Baptism and the subsequent teaching must afterwards wait upon it Children therefore being incapable of this praevious and preparative teaching are incapable also of Baptism which dependeth thereupon Answ The method prescribed here by Christ to his Apostles was only to be used by them in their preaching to pure Pagans grown up to be men and this their commission properly extended unto the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Going therefare that is in due time leaving this land of Palestine wherein you live for the present when you shall be accomplished with the Spirit make your progresse into far distant parts and there teach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Nations the word properly importing Heathens formerly unacquainted with God his word Such people must first be taught before they may be Baptized This text therefore may justly be charged against the Papists in America where thousands of Natives were cruelly driven with whips to the Font to be baptized before they were ever Catechized in any rudiments of Christian Religion but cannot at all be objected against the baptizing of infants the children of Christian parents the teaching of Heathen and those of full age being only intended in this command Thus have we given the true and genuine sence of these words Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them c. However we will not omit another interpretation which godly Divines give thereof consonant to Scripture phrase They render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make disciples in which sence they maintaine that infants are capable of disciple-ship and may be inlisted therein For proof hereof they produce Acts 15. 10. why tempt ye God to put a yoak upon the neck of the disciples Now this yoak was Circumcision which some stickled so zealously for and these disciples were infants eight days old on whom that Sacrament was fastened In this sence children may be taught that is discipled before baptism and so the text nothing favouring the purpose of the objectors though I rather adhere to the former answer as most proper to the text Here will it be seasonable to interpose an admonition to parents You see in Christs commission to his Disciples the Divine method in dispensation of ordinances to Ethnicks 1. Teach 2. Baptize 3. And Teach But towards the children of Christian parents
yet possibly the measure thereof might be faulty Elisha being like Eliah and Eliah a man subject to like passions as we are James 5. 17. And He might see in himself what others saw not in him that he was too much transported with passion and perchance did too much insult on the present perplexity and extremity of King Jehoram Wherefore conceiving that He in the still voice would not come to one in so loud a passion he calls for a Minstrel so to reduce pacate and compose his Soul that it might return to a quiet temper Whence it plainly appears what an enemy Passion is generally to the receiving of Gods Spirit and that all those which desire a Revelation of the truth unto them must labour to devest themselves thereof 33. Thirdly devest thy self of Covetuousness Here take notice how easily men are perswaded to embrace those opinions though never so erroneous which bring in profit unto them for instance One with weak sinnews of Logick worse colours of Rhetorick will quickly perswade a Country-man to be a convert in this point that he is not bound to pay Tithes to his Minister 34. On the other side it is hard to wean men from sucking on those Opinions which are sweetned unto them by commodity For by this craft we get our gain Acts 19. 25. No wonder if the Pope zealously maintaineth Purgatory seeing that Purgatory so plentifully maintaineth the Pope The same may be said of other lucrative errours in their Religion Pilgrimages Pardons Prayers to the Saints Prayers for the dead c. Scylla omnes suos divitiis implevit it was the policy of that cunning Senatour to enrich all of his party tyed by their purse-strings the faster unto him whereas the Antifaction of the Marians being nothing so well monied by their Patron cleaved not so stedfastly unto him Gainfull errors soon gain and long keep such as desire them whereas speculative opinions which terminate onely in the brains having little influence on mens practise and less on their profit are nothing so taking of men and men nothing so tenacious of them 35. As for the errour of such as deny the Baptising of Infants we have cause to conceive the greater hopes of their returning to the truth because that their Opinion can not make them a thred or a shoo-latchet the richer by the maintaining thereof Tully saith of our Brittainy in his time when Caesar rather discovered than conquered it that it had naturally Ne micam auri aut argenti not a crum of gold or silver as within the bowels of the earth thereof So may I say of the Doctrine of Anti-poedo-baptism it is a bare and poor opinion Gold and Silver it hath none and therefore alone of it self is never probable to enrich the patrons and defenders thereof 36. And yet as Tully went a little too far in condemning Brittain as utterly devoid of Silver oar and is disproved by the industry of our Age which some years since hath discovered Silver mines in Wales so possibly this opinion may be more advantagious to the defenders thereof than is obvious to the eye of every common beholder It may be it may make them more capable of preferment and that either they are or conceive themselves to be in a better proximity to advancement by maintaining thereof as more favourably reflected on than others as if this opinion gave the most real testimony of their good affections to the present government whereby they apprehend themselves the next reversions to preferment I believe they mistake themselves therein and that no such partiality is in the present state However let them examine their own souls and devest themselves of covetousness in case they be conscious to themselves that expectation of profit inclines them to this opinion 37. Come we now to Positive counsels what we ought to perform And here I am afraid some will be offended at the simplicity plainness of them There is a book entituled De medecinis facilè parabilibus of medicines which may easily be procured and very good for such w ch take Physick in forma pauperis Yea generally it is conceived nothing so much detracteth from the worth of those medicines as the cheapness and commonness thereof so that if we did but fetch from the East Indies what now groweth in our gardens it would then be accounted a precious Drug which now we esteem a common Potherb In like manner I fear that these our counsels shall be undervalued for the usualness and obviousness of them If a Soul-Mount-abank should prescribe such new fangled means which was never heard of before he should get more patients than all the grave Physicians of the City However we will adventure to prescribe these plain means which God hath prescribed unto us 38. First pray to God that he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth would be pleased in his own due time to reveal all necessary truths unto thee Secondly be diligent in reading Gods Word Luther did profess that when he first began to write against the Pope many fancies were put into his head plausible to flesh and bloud but groundless on Scripture which made him daily to pray Domine in verbo Domine in verbo Lord teach me in thy Word 39. Thirdly be carefull in keeping the Lords day not with any superstitious but godly observation thereof On what day did God reveal the Revelation to S. John On the Lords day Rev. 1. 10. Thus Princes use to bestow their Boons and confer their favors chiefly on those days which more properly are called their days as on the Anniversaries of their Births or Coronations Fourthy Repair to the place of Gods Publick Service Fifthly as the Magistrate bears not the Sword in vain the Minister bears not the Word in vain But least we Ministers should seem to plead our own cause herein we leave this to God to plead for us 39. Object But some erroneous persons will be ready to say unto me as the young man did to our Saviour in the Gospel All these things have I done from my youth I have constantly prayed and carefully read and conscienciously kept the Lords day and diligently repaired to the publick Ministery and have endeavoured to devest my self of pride passion and covetousness and yet no errour is revealed to me which I formerly maintained Hereupon I conclude my self to be in the right Our English Proverb as it hath much of rudeness so it hath no less of truth therein One is not bound to see more than he can And I conceive I am in no errour because I follow my present light and all the means of your prescription have made no alteration on my understanding 40. Answ Give me leave to be jealous over these Objectors with a godly jealousie I exspect not the validity of my Receits prescribed but suspect their effectual application thereof whether or no they have sincerely practised the same this I am sure
hasten with all convenient speed to the fourth which one is worth all the rest A servant of God in this life is perfect 4 Imputatively Christs perfections through Gods mercy being imputed unto him If I be worsted in my front and beaten in my main Battel I am sure I can safely retreat to this my invincible Reer In the agonie of temptation we must quit comparative perfection Alass Relation is rather a shadow then a substance quit intentional perfection being conscious to our selves how oft our actions cross our intentions Quit inchoative perfection for whilest a servant of God compareth the little goodness he hath with that great proportion which by Gods law he ought to have he conceiveth thereof as the pious Jews did of the Foundation of the second Temple Haggai 2. 3. Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing But stick we may and must to imputative perfection which indeed is Gods act cloathing us with the Righteousness of Jesus Christ This is the reason the Saints are unwilling to own any other perfection for though God Job 1. 1. is pleased to stile Job a perfect man yet see what he saith of himself Iob 9. 20. If I say that I am perfect it shall also prove me per verse God might say it Iob durst not for fear of pride and presumption Indeed Noah is the first person who is pronounced perfect in Scripture Gen. 6. 9. But mark I pray what went in the verse before But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Not that his finding grace is to be confined to his particular preservation from the Deluge which was but one branch or sprig of Gods grace unto him But his whole person was by Gods goodness accepted of Noahs perfection more consisting in that acceptance then his own amiableness approved not so much because God found goodness in Noah but because Noah found grace in God Come we now in the description of the Dead to what he is The end of that man is peace Object Some will object that daily experience confutes the truth of this Doctrine what more usual then to see Gods servants tossed tumbled tortured tormented often ending their painful lives with shameful deaths Cushi being demanded by David to give an account of Absaloms condition 2 Sam. 18. 32. made this mannerly and politique return The enemies of my Lord the King and all that rise up against thee to do thee hurt be as that young man is But some will say if this be a peaceable end to lead an afflicted life and have an ignominious death may the enemies of God and all goodness the infringers of our Laws and Liberties the haters of Learning and Religion the destroyers of Unity and Order have their souls surset of such a peaceable end Resp In answer hereunto we must make use of our Saviours distinction the same for substance and effect though in words there be variation thereof Being taxed by Pilate for treason against Caesar he pleaded for himself Ioh. 18. 36. My kingdom is not of this world So say we to salve all objections our peace that is the peace in our Text and God make it ours not only to treat and hear but partake thereof is not of this world consisteth not in temporal or corporal prosperity but is of a more high and heavenly nature Indeed this peace is in this world but not of this world begun here in the calm of a clear and quiet conscience and finished hereafter in the Haven of endless happiness When the man in my Text becomes perfectly perfect he shall then become perfectly peaceable However we may see that sometimes I say not alwayes God sets a signal character of his favour on some of his servants enjoying at their end a generall calm and universal tranquillity towards all to whom they are related Amongst the many priviledges of Saints reckoned up Job 5. none more remarkable then that verse 23. For the Stones of the field shall be at league with thee and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee Have we here a Dichotomy of all wicked men or a sorting of them all into two sides Some are Stones like Nabal 1 Sam. 25. 37. stupid sottish senseless no Rhetorick with its expanded hand no Logick with its contracted fist no Scripture no reason no practice no precedent can make any impression upon them so that the best of men may even despair to get their good will Well the way to do it and procure a perfect peace with them is to please God Others are beasts like the Cretians Tit. 1. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so fierce so furious so crafty so cruel no medling with them without danger As the former could not conceive so these will not abide any rational debate with them The former were too low and silly too much beneath these high and haughty too much above perswasion to peace mention but the name thereof and they Psal 112. prepare themselves to battel The art then to make these friends with a man is only this to endeavour to please the high God of heaven and then Solomons words will come to pass Prov. 16. 7. When a mans wayes please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him It once came to pass in England and but once it came to pass in England namely when Sir Thomas Moor was Lord Chancellor that the Cryer in Chancery being commanded to call the next cause returned this answer there were no more causes to be heard Not that there was no more on the file for that day which is ordinary and usual but which is strange that then there was no more sutes depending in the whole Court of Chancery but that all ripened for Trial were decided Then was Janus his Temple shut clean throughout England in Cases betwixt Plaintiff and Defendant relating to equity and conscience Whether this proceeded from the peaceableness of people in that age not so quarrelsome and litigious as in ours or from the goodness of the Judge either happy privately to compound differences without any sute or dextrous publickly to decide them with all expedition But when some good man hath lyen on his death bed though having many sutes in his life all then are ended and composed Call the sute betwixt this man and his God long since it is attoned and both made friends in Christ Cal the sute betwixt this man and his conscience it is compremised and both of them fully agreed Cal the sute betwixt this man and his enemies Stones and Beasts it is compounded and they at peace with him Call the sute betwixt this man and all other Creatures it is taken up and he and they fully reconciled Thus I say sometimes not alwayes God graceth some of his servants that they depart in an universal peace a personal favour indulged to some select Saints But generally and universally all the true servants of God whatever