to be cloathed So our Saviour breathed on the Apostles Ioh. 20.21 22. when he said Receive the Holy Ghost So the Apostles used imposition of hands to denote their ordained Successors 1 Tim. 5.22 and 4.14 Heb. 6.6 which ceremony the Church of Christ in all ages hath observed in the successive Ordinations of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons as one of the fundamentals of the Churches polity order and power Not that these outward Rites and Ceremonies are of the essence of the duty of the divine power but for the evidence of that order and authority which is necessary that there may be nothing dubious or doubtful or confused or upon bare presumptions and conjectures in the Churches sacred Ministry but such an authority as is both powerful in its efficacy and pregnant and signal in its derivation and execution that none might undertake the work who is not constituted to be a Workman nor any withdraw from it who is rightly furnished for so worthy a Work as the Apostle calls the work of a Bishop either the minores Episcopi which are orderly Presbyters or the majores Presbyteri which are the paternal Bishops We see Eliahs spirit falls on none but his annointed Successor The spirit and power follows the lawful succession nor was any so fit for the appointment and succession as Elisha a man indeed of plain breeding of a country yet honest way of living which is no prejudice or impediment when God intended to furnish him with Eliahs spirit 1 Kings 19.19 with extraordinary gifts and endowments with the power from on high as Christ did his fishermen when he made them fishers of men Luk. 5.10 This was in one hour more to their improvement than all Schools and Vniversities all literature and education all languages arts sciences and Scriptures But when these special gifts which were miraculous are not given nor needful in the ordinary ministration propagation and preservation of Religion there reading and study and diligence and education and Schools of the Prophets are the conduits of Gods good and perfect gifts conveyed by holy industry and prayer to those that study to shew themselves workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim 2 15. when once they are sanctified or set apart by God and the Church as here Elisha was In whom doubtless God and Eliah had seen something that expressed a very gracious and sincere heart by an humble holy Elisha's fitness to succeed Eliah and unblameable life We never finde that men of leud or scandalous lives are called to be Prophets of God or allowed to be made Preachers and Bishops of the Church wherein the antient Canons of the Affrican and other Churches were very strict and circumspect whom when and how they were ordained Bishops Presbyters or Deacons St. Paul requires that they should be not only unblameable but of good report even among the Heathens and unbeleivers as to matters of Justice Morality and common honesty as well as sound and orthodox in the Christian faith § Elisha discovers an excellent spirit and fit for a Prophet of God 2 Kings 2.2 4 6 not only by his individual adherency to Eliah three times piously disobeying his commands when he bade him leave him As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee The love of good company is a good sign of a good conscience a very good way to a good life and a ready means to make us partakers of spiritual gifts but further Elisha shews a most devout and divine soul in him fit to make a Prophet to succeed Eliah when first he doth not preposterously and presumptuously obtrude himself upon the holy Office and Succession but attends Gods call and the Prophets appointment of him Secondly When he sees it is the will of God and his father Eliah he doth not morosely refuse or deprecate and wave the imployment as some had done Moses and Jeremiah after though he knew it would be heavy and hot service in so bad times but submits to that onus no less than honos burthen as well as honor God imposeth on him Thirdly In order to his support and encouragement in the work he doth not covetously or ambitiously look to the preferment or honor or profit which might easily follow such an imployment especially if merchandise might be made of miracles as Gehazi designed and of the Gospel if Ministers turned Sucklers and Hucksters of the word of God as the Apostle taxeth some who were greedy of filthy lucre no but his earnest and only desire is for a double portion of Eliahs spirit to be upon him not that he might have more glory but be able to do more good 1 Kings 9. â—4 Iames 17 with more courage and constancy with less dejection and melancholy despondency than Eliah who was a man subject to like human passions and sometimes prone to fall not only into despiciencies and weariness of life but even to despair as to the cause of God and true Religion It is as Chrysologus calls it a commendable emulation to imitate the best men and a pious ambition to desire to excel them in spiritual gifts and graces which the Apostle St. Paul excites all to covet in their places which the more bright and excelling they are like the light of the sun the more they dispel all the vapors mists and fogs of humane passions or pride which by fits darken the souls of holy men I cannot here but own my desires The defective and dubious succession of Evangelical Ministers very deplorable and deplore the state of our times which forbids me almost to hope their accomplishment as to any orderly and meet succession of Evangelical Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Presbyters in this Church our Eliah's dayly drop away I do not see any care taken for Elisha's to suceed them in such compleat clear and indisputable ways of holy Ordination and Succession as may most avoid any shew of faction novelty and schism and be most uniform to the Antient Catholick primitive Apostolick and uniform pattern which never wanted in any setled Church either Presbyters to chuse and assist the Bishops or Bishops after the Apostles to try ordain oversee and govern with the Counsel of Presbyters and all other degrees and orders in the Church Darkness disputes divisions distractions dissatisfactions and confusions must needs follow that Army or City that knows not who are its Commission officers or lawful and authorised Magistrates so must it needs be in the Church when Christians know not who are their Fathers their Stewards their Shepherds their Bishops or their Presbyters There is nothing next the fundamentals of faith in which the Church should be more clear and confidently ascertained than in this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 10.15 Ordination and succession of their Evangelical Prophets for how shall they preach or rule unless they be lawfully sent and set over the houshold of faith Christs
respect to St. Austin as a Bishop and his junior in age yet so far his superiour although St. Austins humility indeed so far Complements with and cools the others heat as to say that although Bishop Austins precedency before Presbyter Jerom was by Ecclesiastical use and custom very old Apostolical and universal yet as to the truth of personal worth and eminency of merit Presbyter Jerom was above Bishop Austin Had Bishops and Presbyters in our days carried this equanimity to each other it had been happyer for both § But if Presbyters were clearly of the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adequate in their holy Orders and Ecclesiastical Power as to the main which is not easily proved nor was of old so judged by the Fathers for even St. Jerom excepts Ordination as a peculiar belonging to Bishops both in fact and in right for ought appears as Successors to the twelve Apostles who were above the Seventy in point of precedency inspection power and jurisdiction yet the fancy of equality as to Bishops and Presbyters was chiefly fomented by some latter Schoolmen who urged this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Bishops and Presbyters to advance the Popes throne and Soveraignty above Bishops from whose authority Monks and Friars coverted exemption as immediately under the Popes visitation who commonly were old men far off and had dim eyes to see the Monastick disorders Besides the Parasites of the Pope were also to magnifie the later device of Transubstantiating and that Mass power of all Presbyters so high as none might or could exceed it if true yet still the eminent degree and exercise of Bishops as to the Polity and government of the Church both for general inspection and chief jurisdiction for Ordination and Discipline for presidency as well as precedency authority as order was never of old questioned much less denied as Antichristian being as rational and suitable to Religious Order yea and as Christian or Evangelical as for one to be Provost or Master of a Colledge over many Fellows possibly as good men and Schollars as himself or for some Commanders to be over fellow-Souldiers or for some Citizens to be Magistrates over other Freemen or for Parents to own their authority or superiority over their children when they are men and women of the same nature and stature with themselves The levelling of mankinde throughout in State and Church Of levellings in Church and State in Civil Military and Ecclesiastical power because in some things they are equal is but a policy and project of the great author of confusion 1 Cor. 14.33 the God of order appointed of old and approves for ever different degrees ranks and stations in his Church according as men are fitted by him with gifts for government in such ways of meet superiority and subordination as preserves order and deserves respect Exod. 6.25 as the Priests of Aarons family so of the whole Tribe of Levi had their ranks and orders their duties degrees and distances there were Heads and Fathers and chief Fathers of their Tribes and Families as well as of others which the Septuagint render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dâ—â— â— 15 Bishops or Overseers of them and this not onely in age and primogeniture by nature and years but officio praelatura by office and authoritative power so to oversee not as a bare Spectator but as Shepherds or Masters of Assemblies 1 Tim. 5.19 Tit. 2.15 who did rebuke with all Authority yea and reject in cases of demerit And then was it also by St Pauls example and prescription to Timothy and others among the Christian Churches who in the worst times never wanted their good Bishops nor in good time that love honor and obedient regard to them as to their Fathers in the Lord when they were worthy of that name and office The name Father is sanctum suave nomen Of the Name Father its highest sense belongs to God in comparison of whom none is to be called or counted a Father as Christ spake Nemo tam pater Mat. 3.23 nemo tam pius as Tertullian Ambitiosius Patris nomen quam Domini heri exigit God hath an ambition rather to be called Father by us and so treated than Lord and Master Therefore our Saviour begins his and our prayer with Our Father This venerable Name breatheth all comforts this mindeth us of and bindeth us to all filial love this racks us from the sowre dregs of servile fear 1 Iohn 4.18 he that can say this proem or first word Our Father with true faith to God and charity to man need not doubt to go on in that perfect prayer Since men lost their charity to others and their filial regard to God and their reverence to their parents they have avoided to use the saying or praying of the Lords prayer as afraid and ashamed of it because it binds them at the very first word to their good behaviour by the bands of piety to God in Father and of charity to men in Our which no factions or schisms no sinister interests and ends no Pharisaick pride or singularity can endure no more than Witches can the Creed or the unruly Demoniack the presence of Christ § Yet no man is or can be further happy than he hath and owns God for his Father 1. in creation and providence Father of the whole Family in heaven and earth Eph. 5.3 2. In Christ as sending his Son into the world a Redeemer for all men without exception in the value merit and offer of his sufferings and in that conditionate capacity into which every one is by Christ put upon his faith and repentance to be saved and owned as the brother of Christ and Son of God 3. And lastly God is a Father by those special effects of regeneration and grace which follow that immortal seed of his Word and motions of his Spirit where they fall upon broken and contrite spirits not upon hard hearts Mat. 13.5 or fallow and stony ground which refuse the reception and damp the operation of those holy means that are both able and apt to work the life of faith repentance and love in a reasonable soul This highest account of the name Father is only to shew how much it imports of honor love merit and duty being a branch rooted in God and from his goodness springing to his creatures § Why God communicates to men the name of Father But this relative name of Father is none of the incommunicable ones God is pleased to lend the graving or character of it to mankinde and to stamp this paternal honor and Majesty upon some men in natural civil and ecclesiastical respects Hence the first command of the Second Table or the last of the first is that caution to honor father and mother a duty of piety and religion as well as of morality civility humanity and polity God is concerned as despised and injured in any indignities offered to
false in their lives love not to be brought to the touchstone at their deaths Indeed some mens lives actions and memories are like their carkasses best when least stirred and most hidden from the sight of others Psal 112.6 But the just shall be had in everlasting remembrance and enjoy this reward even among men to have their name as a precious ointment poured out Eccles 7.1 Cant. 1.3 Mat. 26.12 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not preparatory to but contemporary with their interment or burial that so the sweet odor of it may not only accompany as the spices which Mary bought for Christ their coffin and corps but fill the whole house the place the Parish the Church or the Temple where they either lived or are buried FINIS MEMORIALS OF THE Life and Death OF BP. Brounrig I Have done right honorable and worthy with the Text read unto you I know your piety and civility now expect that I should if not largely comment yet fairly paraphrase or gloss upon that Text which lies dead before you the corps or earthly remains of that reverend Father in God Dr. Ralph Brounrig late Lord Bishop of Excester It were too great an injury to you at once to lose the honor of his presence and the happiness of his example § Of the honour of Bishops as Fathers and Lords I call him stilo veteri a Bishop a Father and a Lord without offence I hope to those old and new Lords Temporal who less able to endure the honor and society of Bishops as Lords Spiritual have by depluming these very much moulted their own feathers nor do I use these Titles by an arrogancy but a justice being due to him by the Laws of England as well as by ancient Ecclesiastick customs nor any way that I know forfeited by him or by other worthy Bishops who however hated and despised by the supercilious and popular spirits of some men whose neither mind nor manners exceeded such Bishops in any point of true nobleness and worth yet God forbid that one hair of their venerable heads should fall to the ground by my neglect of paying that filial love respect and honor which I have learned from the Apostles canon and pious antiquity as due to the Fathers of my Ministerial power and Ordination who have ruled well and labored too in the Word and Doctrine § Which tribute of double honor hath ever been willingly paid to learned grave and venerable Bishops of the Church not only by all humble and orderly Presbyters but by all sorts of Christian people great and small and most by the best even by Gentlemen Noblemen Princes Kings and Emperors who so soon as the Church had rest not only endowed many Bishops with ample revenues but added to them those civil honors which made them Peers to the Senatorian order or Patrician dignity ever since Constantine the great 's time which is now one thousand three hundred years A very long prescription and valid prejudice against modern levellings of the Clergie and Episcopacy § Not that I think it the part of a grave Divine or a reverend Bishop to affect secular honors and civil titles but rather to deserve them and to live above them as the primitive persecuted Bishops did who wanted not real honors among good Christians when they had no favour from Civil Laws and Secular Powers § But in a Nation professing to honor the Lord Jesus Christ I see no cause they should deny that double honor to the chiefest of his Servants Stewards Messengers Ministers and Embassadors which by the rule of Christ is due to them as in his stead Nor is it a great matter if those partake of mens civil and temporary honors who impart to them the way of true and eternal honor especially in a land of plenty and so of vulgar petulancy where no Authority in Church or State is to be preserved unless it be adorned with such ensigns of visible honor and estate as may not only keep off contempt and insolency but conciliate respect and reverence § I confess I cannot to this day understand by what partial policy and unreasonable reason of State in a Christian and civilised Nation the gate of Honor should be open to Gentlemen to Lawyers to Soldiers to Merchants to meer Mecanicks who by valour or industry or money or meer favour without any signal merit may ascend to the honor of Lords and of sitting in Parliament as Counsellors of publick and grand affairs of whom one day adventured to bring forth a whole house full and yet this gate of honor must be shut against all Divines and Church men only even then when they were worthy to be made Pastors and Bishops of the Church whose learning vertue wisdom and every way useful merit is no less contributive to the publick happiness than any other order of men yea perhaps more on which merit that Apostolical Canon for double honor is undoubtedly grounded which includes such Estates as may make them hospitable and such respect as owns them venerable as persons that are stiled Angels by the Spirit of God Rev. 2 and 3. being in a degree of heavenly service and holy office above ordinary mortals § But I shall not need further to assert the honor of this and such like Bishops against the vapor and vanity of some men who seeing Bishops lightned of their estates will it may be with more patience endure the empty title of Lords to be given them Certainly all just and ingenuous persons will abhor injurious indignities offered to deserving Bishops as a most undutiful sacriledge when they are satisfied of the many meritorious claims which they had to true honor by that eminency of worth which is in them whereof I could not have had in any age a more convincing and notable instance capable to to split in sunder as Daniel did Bel and the Dragon of Antiepiscopal envy than this excellent Bishop whose Funerals we this day celebrate § His publique conspicuiâ—ie and eminency A person of those ample and cubical dimensions for height of learning and Understanding for depth of Humility and Devotion for length of all Morality and Vertue and for breadth of all Humanity and Charity that it is hard for me to contract or epitomize him One cannot tell as Nazianzen speaks of Cyprian Or. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether the variety in allor the excellency in every vertue was most to be admired in him He is like an excellent Book full of remarkable sentences that hath nothing in it which is not worth noting He is as a fair large and fruitful field affording both freedom to expatiate and plenty to gather He is as a solid mass of gold pure precious and ponderous malleable also to a great extent as well as of great weight and worth Being always as Chrysostom speaks Innocentia infans virtute juvenis obedientia filius charitate frater gravitate pater
THE R R d FATHER IN GOD RALPH BROWNRIG L â— B â— OF EXETER Who Died aged 67. Decem 7th 1659. A SERMON PREACHED In the Temple-Chappel at the FUNERAL of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr. Brounrig LATE Lord Bishop of EXCETER who died Decem. 7. and was solemnly buried Decemb. 17. in that Chappel With an account of his LIFE and DEATH Both Dedicated to those Honorable Societies by the Author Dr. GAVDEN 2 Cor. 4.18 The things that are seen are temporal but the things that are not seen are eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Aliud est vivere moriturum cum Platone aliud mori victurum cum Paulo Hieron Ep. Nepot LONDON Printed by J. Best for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in S. Pauls Church-yard 1660. To the Reverend Dr. GAUDEN these present SIR YOur Sermon preached at the Funeral of the late eminent Bishop of Exceter hath been and is of that general acceptation that those that heard it or have heard of it do consent in their earnest desires of us to write unto you for its publishing The honor in it due to that learned Prelate as a memorial of him the great benefit which will arise to the Church both in the present age and future the seasonableness of the manifestation of his judgement in several subjects and the happy fruit which may be reaped by the Reader in the imitation of his exemplary life and pious conversation to Gods glory and the good of souls these do sufficiently of themselves bespeak your inclination to it But we do also make it our request that you will be pleased with all convenient speed to print it which as it will satisfie the expectation of your many other Friends so will it much oblige Your very affectionate Friends and Servants N. Bernard Edw. Young Tho. Buck. Grays-Inn Decâ—â—b 23. 1659. TO THE Honourable Societies OF THE TEMPLES HAving endeavored Honorable and worthy Gentlemen if not to adorn yet at least to do some right to the memory of the reverend and renowued Bishop Brounrig by those justa Parentalia praises which are most due to his accomplished worth for his holy obedience to the Word of God for his conformity to his blessed Saviour for his loyalty to Soveraign power for his love to his Country for his compassion to the Church for his zeal to the Reformed Religion for those sighs prayers and tears by which he encoutred the sins and miseries of this Nation for his exemplary merits to all that were or would be good and lastly for his particular favour towards me of which I am ambitious to express a most grateful sense Yet I finde still something of further duty and discretion incumbent on me which must be discharged by this Preface or Epistle to which your name is inscribed wherein first I am to justifie my own so large and liberal commendation of the Bishop Secondly I am to give an account of your particular merit as to this Dedication Thirdly I am to crave your patrociny for my vindication § For the first My own Veracity as to what I have wrote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without envy flattery or partiality of this excellent Bishop I believe I have the attestation of all good men who either personally knew or have been fully informed of his worth if they have eyes able to behold and bear the resplendency of all moral vertues in an excellent man of all intellectual abilites in an excellent Schollar of all sound Divinity in an excellent Divine of well chosen well handled well applied and well practised Texts in an excellent Preacher of all gravity prudence circumspectness and candor in an excellent Governour of sincere and operative graces in an excellent Christian Lastly of all these concurrent compleated and cumulated in an excellent Bishop who was indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in in all points of humane and divine perfections such as he should be § All ingenious persons who are not overgrown with the Antiepiscopal Jaundise who have not envious odious jealous and implacable eyes against all Bishops and most against the best will readily subscribe to what I have written Yea I know there is such a cloud of witnesses as forbids me solicitously to avow my own integrity and truth on either side § First For my self I am as much an enemy to flattery as a friend to civility Parasitisme differs as much from just and comely praise as Divels do from good Angels The first is black as hel the second beautiful as Heaven I fear nothing whatever I do or say or write more then that base fear which either prostitutes to servile adulation of vice or is overawed from just commendation of vertue even in Bishops I do profess with Greg. Naz. commending St. Cyprian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have spoken and written as to the verity and eminency of the patern nothing to any compliance or partiality I was not to dress up an Ulyssis with Homer or an Aeneas with Virgil after a poetick freedom and flourish of invention but to represent to the unworthy world a most worthy Bishop and to reproach the imprudence and ingratitude of the age by letting it see in this particular what an admirable Bishops it had extirpated what accomplished abilities it had suppressed what useful merits it had discountenanced not onely by not rewarding but by depriving of such rewards as they had both deserved and obtained by Gods blessing and the munificence of the Prince and Nation I was to set forth a chief Pastor of the Church conformable to Christs cross as well as serviceable to his flock having not only the crown of crucified affections but also crucrifying afflictions yea and of crucified vertues by the indignities of the world nay and of self crucifying graces too by his own humility for while he was eminent in all men that had eyes to see true worth yet in his own eyes he was nothing and Christ was all in all to him § Secondly They knew not Bishop Brounrig who knew not how far he was from either active or passive flattery As he abhorred both so he needed neither He was far above them being so full and overflowing with reall and solid worth that he was not capable as lanck bladders of any empty and aiery distentions he had as Plato saith of one Gorgias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A soul and life that wanted fictitious comendations no more then burnished gold or polished marble doth need any paint or colouring § Such deceitful decorations and spurious prayses are for their Sepulchers who affect to be reputed worthies when they have done nothing worthily who would be recounted for great Rabbies and Reformers when indeed they were but Abaddons and Apollyons of all things civil and sacred ambitious when dead to be called Patriots and Fathers of their countrey yea Saviours and Preservers of Religion when they have sought to sacrifice both fathers and children to the Molochs Chians and Remphans Idols and Images which they
fair pots then was God their more immediate Prophet and Instructer The Patriarchal succession in families in dreams and night-visions in ocular and sensible apparitions by day in audable and articular expressions or in mental illuminations So to Enoch and Noah and Abraham Isaac and Jacob yet so as the holy Fathers of those families were at once as successive Princes Priests and Prophets to their families taking care to teach their posterity children and servants the true fear and worship of God Gen. 18.19 which the Lord promiseth himself from Abraham Iosh 24.15 and Joshua promiseth to God for himself and his house Afterward After successioning eater Polities when the Church of God multiplied from a family to a grand Polity or community which required those Laws and constitutions both Civil and Ecclesiastical together with the execution of them by Princes Priests and prophets which might best preserve humane society within those bounds of honesty and holiness and within the enjoyment of those blessings which might answer all just and good desires either as to the enjoyment of their lives estates and liberties in peace or as to the serving of God and keeping communion with him in those holy ways of his worship and service which he required of them for their good as well as his own glory then was it that the Lord either by special designation or by setled succession furnished his Church with such Princes Judges Priests and Prophets as he saw necessary for them Yea Ecclesiastical order and succeâ—â—â—on most necessary whatever scambling and confusion in Civil and Regular Magistracy mens ambition brought on the state of the Jews yet the Church order and polity of Religion was so fixed in Aarons family as to the constant Primacy of the Priesthood and in the Tribe of Levi as to the inferior offices and services that it continued many hundred of years after their Kings and after their Captivity inviolated among the Jews nor was that sacred Order and Succession quite depraved in Israel till a most unreasonable and detestable reason of state policy laying aside all true sense and conscience of piety 1 King 12.31 set up golden calves for gods to the silly people and consecrated the meanest of the people to serve them Meet Priests indeed for such bruitish gods When the great Prophet Moses was to leave the world Moses his care for succession yet he leaves the Church this legacy of comfort as to the divine care and providence for a succession The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him you shall hearken which as it was most eminently and consummatively fulfilled in our blessed Saviour as Philip tells Nathanael Iohn 1.45 Acts 3.22 Acts 7.37 and as St. Peter with St. Stephen convince the Jewes who was the great inspirer and compleater of the Prophets and their Prophesies so it was also fulfilled in those intermediate Prophets which followed Moses even to John Baptist whom God sent successively to preserve reform and restore true Religion in the Church The Priestly Prophetick Ministerial successive authority as necessary as magistratick and Ministerial Office is not less necessary in the Church than the Princely and Magistratick power is in the State unless men judge their souls eternal interests less precious than those of their bodies and estates Yea for the most part Gods Providence hath so distinguished them that when there were the best Princes yet there were added to them eminent Prophets besides the constant Priests as in Davids time where Samuel Gad and Nathan were imployed And here in the great revolt and sad Apostacy of Israel from Gods and Davids house yet the Lord is not wanting to send an Eliah and when he is to be gone order is taken for the appointing Elisha to succeed him the Ordinances of heaven 1 Kings 16 1â—.1â— of night and day summer and winter of Spring and Harvest Gen. 8 22. are not more necessary by the successive motions of Sun and Moon and Stars than those Ministers and Ministrations are by which true Religion and an autoritative order in the Church are maintained in present and duly derived to posterity Hence our blessed Saviour Our blessed Saviours care of succession in the Church Iohn 20.20 the great Minister and Fulfiller of all righteousness before his ascention took care for the Apostolick confirmation Consecration Mission and Commission as Stewards and Ambassadors in his stead to be sent by him as he was by his Father The Apostles also before their departure had the like care as is evident in the history of the Acts and in the charge that St. Paul gives to Timothy and Titus within their respective Provinces and Diocesses to commit the Evangelical spiritual power and Ministry as a sacred depositum to faithful and able men that may as Bishops and Pastors 2 Tim. 2.2 as Presbyters and Teachers both instruct and rule the Church or flock of Christ committed to their charge according to the several proportions and combinations of those Ecclesiastical Societies over which not only many Teachers were ordained but also some one Father or Angel was constituted and owned by the Spirit of Christ as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 2 3 chap. chief President over them the head or centre of order and union the principal Conservator and Dispenser of all Ecclesiastical power and authority which Irenaeus Tertullian St. Cyprian Origen and all the Antients counted Successiones successores Apostolorum having the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gift and character in ordinary which the Apostles had either as Presbyters or Presidents in the Church § Succession signalised by some visible ceremony That this might be done the more signally and conspicuously so as all might take notice of the solemn trausaction in a business of so sacred and great importance to the Church there was not onely due trial to be made of mens abilities inward and outward for such undertakings but they were to be invested with the Ecclesiastical power and admitted to the exercise of those sacred Ministrations by some evident ceremonies as tokens of Gods Ordination the Clergies approbation and the peoples acceptance of them So little is God an enemy as some have strongly fancied to all decent ceremonies in Religion which are shadows indeed of good things with whose substance they well agree We see that not only Sacramental mysteries even in the Gospel as well as under the Law are set forth by them and cloathed all over with them as to the outside or sign but also the Ordination of Priests Prophets and all Church Ministers ordinary and extraordinary have been adorned by them Elisha is first annointed by Eliah â— Kings 19.19 after this Eliah casts his mantle upon him even that mantle which afterward fell from Eliah ascending and was as an emblem of his spirit with which Elisha was
but commendable and imitable in parallel occasions when they are real unwonted and wonderful in whch Good men do not deserve blame if they seem to forget themselves while they remember God a great and terrible Majesty it is meet for us to hear the voyce or rod of God and who hath appointed it Secondly 2 The matter or words of Elisha But passions alone and their expressions by crying out or any outward emotion disorder which signifie no more than interjections or broken and inarticulate sounds but as the leaves of the barren figtree without fruit Of rational and religious exstasies or as clouds without water these are neither the intents nor usual effects of divine manifestations and extraordinary impressions for however they may give some exstatick terror and amazement at first by the newness suddenness and wonder of them so as to discompose a while both Reason and Religions clearness yet they are not considerable further than God is discernable in them and glorified by them as that vision of Moses and Elias on the mount with Christ at his transfiguration Luke 9.8 9 10 which gave St. Peter such a present shake and astonishment that though he spake of making three Tabernacles and staying there yet he knew not what he said that is he did not well consider the unseasonableness and unreasonableness of his proposals yet afterward upon composed reflections and calmer thoughts 2 Pet. 1.17 he makes a very holy and excellent use of that vision to confirm the faith of Christians in Christ as in the beloved Son of God which voyce we heard saith he in the holy mount coming from the excellent glory of God the Father § Why Elisha thus cryed after Eliab Elisha's cry is not vox praeterea nihil a bare clamor insignificant as one scared and forehared but his wisdom remained with him he cries out as still importune and eager for the blessing of the doubled spirit that Eliah might see he saw him crying now at the instant of his departing which was the compact and agreement and he now laid claim to the accomplishment using this potent Charm of My Father my Father as begging his last blessing that he might be heir of his spirit Here we may observe Observ That divine manifestations or extasies in whatever way they are applied to our discomposure Oâ— holy transports and impressions still preserve the good man as to grace and the man as to right reason they do not speak either evilly or uncivilly or senselesly or unadvisedly with their lips whilst heart and senses divine Creeds or impulses do affect either they pray or praise God either they fear or rejoyce before him either they admire or adore and set forth the glory of God as Balaam himself did when he was in his Prophetick trances and was over-byassed by Gods Spirit against his own covetousness and ambition So the poor Shepherds at the Angelick Quire and Hymn Luke 2.9 10 11 12. visibly appearing and speaking audibly to them of Christs birth went away believing and rejoycing wondering and reporting the truth they first heard of and then found true in the birth of Christ It is an opinion worthy of the Mahometan blindness to fancy that mad men are inspired and see Angels when they rave and talk wildely Insani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes They are the madder of the two that do think these harsh strings to be touched with Gods holy Spirit § Of fanatick and frantick deliâ—ancies Certainly all extasies of delirancy and dotage that bring men first to strange fancies or to fits of quaking and convulsion then to vent either nonsense or blasphemous and scurrillous extravagancies these must be imputed as learned Dr. Merick Causabon observes either to natural distempers of disease and melancholy or to jugling affectations or to Diabolical delusions and possessions to which some of the Montanists Maniches Circumcellians and others of the Energumeni of old and of late have pretended who made first popular ostentations of special inspirations and correptions or raptures of the Spirit of God but afterwards the leaves and trash the toys and impertinencies they vented by words together with the pernicious extravagancies of their actions proclaimed as loud as the Devil of Mascon to all hearers and spectators that their troubles or tempests with the following dirt and mud arose not from the flowings or emanations of the pure spring of Gods Spirit but either from the Devils filthy injections or from the foul puddle of their own perturbed fancy and corrupt hearts or over-heated brains possibly intoxicated with the fumes of some new opinions and the gallant advantages they fancy to make by them § Of demoniac correptions It is an observation which St. Chrysostom makes that Demoniac correptions as those of the Sybils and other Oracles of old were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such shakings and transports as dispossessed the possessed for a time of themselves both as to their reason and senses but divine Oracles and inspirations greater or lesse like loud or still musick preserve the harmony of the soul though they make for a time quick and smart strokes upon the strings of holy mens constitutions understandings passions and affections The words of Eliah are as St. Godâ— Spirit suggests and utters only words of soberness and truth Acts 26.24 Acts 2.4 Paul refuted Festus his supposal of his madness words of soberness and truth they that should then have heard them as now we read them must confess that God was in him of a truth 1 Pet. 1.2 he spake which St. Peter gives as the character of a true Prophet and Apostle as the Spirit gave him utterance and guidance as intentive to the last object the fatal signal token of his obtaining the desired Spirit and blessing This affected him so highly as the ingemination imports twice crying out My Father My Father § Expressing first a genuine and great sense of his private love respect duty and honor to Eliah whose relation and merit was to him as a father so he had found him so he valued him so he shall misse him remaining without him as an Orphan in minority desolate and exposed to injuries as well as indiscretions We may observe the great ingenuity and humility of Elisha Observ 1 The filial respects of Elisha to Eliah as his Father though anointed a Prophet and thought meet to succeed Eliah though now of the same order yet he doth not disdain to count and call Eliah his father because first his elder secondly his better and ordainer thirdly his superiour in merits graces no less than in degree and authority in his power or place in the Church Thus the antient Christian people yea and the antient Christian Presbyters owned their Bishops as Fathers The father of the Christian Churches in a precedency and presidency of place degree dignity and authority Ecclesiastical Thus did St. Jerom write with
these Jesuited enemies of the Reformed Religion and the true Interests of this Church and Nation whose work this hath been many years to make that vile saying of Campian good in his Decem Rationes Clero Anglicano nihil putidius Doubtless The necessaâ—y use of able and orderly Ministers a Church may better in the worst of times want any thing than good Bishops and orderly Ministers for these in the midst of persecution made Religion good against all the powers of men and Devils all the Armies of vain Philosophers Atheists Epicures Hereticks and Schismaticks Heathenish Princes and barbarous people when they made no more to baite Christians and their Ministers or Bishops to death than to kill Bears and other beasts in their Theaters yet being killed they conquered because united and orderly Christianity like a wedg the more driven home the more it splits all Idolatry and it self continued entire But when Pastors and people Bishops and Presbyters are divided when the whole order and Militia or Army is once disbanded or abased starved and despised the very soul is gone from the body the Sun from the firmament the maenia propugnacula forces and defences are taken away from the Frontiers and Garisons we may write Ichabod on all foreheads the glory is departed from our Israel for every good Bishop is as the spiritual Colonel of his Diocesan Regiment and every good Presbyter under him is as a Captain of his Parochial Company the first without the second will be weak and without assistance and the second without the first will be unruly for want of government together they are compleat § What wise and sober Christian doth not see by woful experience that since this late rout and disorder hath been made upon the chariots and horsemen of our Israel we have seen and heard and felt nothing but wars and rumors of wars scarce one good day of secure serenity without black and terrible clouds hanging over us as death full of blood faction fury discontent and mutual destruction little of peace nothing of charity as far from unity as uniformity in doctrine discipline and government § Nor have those mens chariots kept their own wheels very well on their axes but either driven very heavily or some of them into the read sea of blood who were most active to destroy or disband or disorder our spiritual Militia or Hierarchy and Ministry which was the most-able compleat well-appointed goodliest and gallantest in the Christian reformed world I might say without vain glory in the whole world Some defects and defaults some halts and extravagancies might be in particular persons but the order and the march and the ammunition and the maintenance were as to the main very worthy of the honor and wisdom and bounty and piety of this Nation and Church having as much of ability and courage and more of publique honor and encouragement than any where § Love must not yet despaire of this Church Nor do I yet despair of the wisdom honor piety and gratitude of this Church and State but they may in time return to see the prejudices mischiefs and miseries either felt or feared by the daily incursions as of all manner of errors and confusions in Religion so in civil and secular concernments which easily drive God knows whither to a thousand shipwracking and desperate dangers when once not only the anchors and cables of Religion are broken but the Pilots and Masters either cast over-board or kept under hatches and lost Nothing holds mens hearts so together even in a National peace and harmony as when they all meet in the same center of Religion and can all say Amen to the same prayers and praises of God Nor will any civil cautions coercions keep the publick peace or patch and soder it up when once the hearts and heads of men are cracked and broken in pieces as earthen pitchers by the mutual dashings against one another in differences of Religion where though men get no conquest or booty yet they are strangely pleased with a liberty and animosity only to contest just as Soldiers do in mutinies when they turn the reverence due to Commanders into impudence and insolency § But I have done with this Consideration of Eliahs publique eminency and influence which made him worthy of these appellations of honor and strength of safety and defence to Church and State The chariots and horsemen of Israel being only sorry that so many of my Countrymen seem also to have done with their spiritual Militia seeking so to reduce it as to make it a kinde of Nehustan to bring all Bishops and Ministers as wounded and maimed antiquated and exautorated Soldiers to their almes-houses and Hospitals of publick charity § Of Voluntiers Preachers and Souldiers that will serve gratis If we could maintain our secular Militia at the same rate as some propound for Ministers that every Soldier and Commander would be content with what men will give them it would very much ease the charge of the Nation But some will say there are that will preach gratis for nothing which is no more credible than that any Soldiers will watch and ward and attend their duty and fight for nothing they may do it for a fit of novelty as Voluntiers of a few days standing but they will not long stay by their colours either as Soldiers or Ministers if they must do it for nothing And if they will needs have the Ministerial order and spiritual Militia quite disbanded as chargeable and superfluous that every one may preach and officiate freely that list let them withal try the experiment in the secular Militia lay down their Arms and let every man fight that lists if they will not hearken in reason of State to this motion nor ought they in Religion to the other since men are naturally more prone to defend their Civil than Religious interests These Projectors know well enough that nothing publique is well done which is done occasionally and arbitrarily not as a duty of necessity and conscience but of variety and essay to which neither Ministers nor Soldiers work must be left unless we list to leave all things to Atheism and confusion The Apostle saith expresly 1 Cor. 9.16 A necessity is laid upon him and wo to him if he preach not the Gospel being appointed thereunto by God Acts 20.28 1 Pet. 1.3 and the order of the Church As Ministers are to take heed to the flock over which the Lord by the Church hath set them so others are to take heed what they do to these men so as to hinder or discourage them in so great a work on which the eternal safety and good of souls depends which none but Satan will hinder none but unbelieving Jews or false brethren deceitful workers and evil doers will oppose and seek to oppress Acts 19.24 by a mechanick kind of malice like that of Demetrius or Alexander 2 Tim 4.14 the one a
Councils of Bishops to the Courts of Princes § Ei birth But to avoid all envy and offence in a touchy and captious age where all people will be Preachers and all Presbyters will be Bishops and all Bishops must be extirpated be pleased to know that the spring or original of this so fair so deep so clear so noble a stream of learning piety and wisdom was at Ipswich a Town of good note in Suffolk where he was born Anno 1592. His Parents of Merchantly condition of worthy reputation and of very Christian conversation When he was not many weeks old God took away his earthly Father that himself might have the more tender and fatherly care of this now Orphan but most hopeful Infant § His youth and education By the prudence of his pious Mother his youth and first years of reason were not lost or cast away as the first broachings of a vessel but being hardly repaired if once neglected they were carefully improved for his breeding in all good learning of which he was to a wonder in all ages of his life not only capable but so comprehensive that he drank in learning not as narrow-mouthed bottles to which young learners are compared by drops but as a sponge by great draughts even in his puerice or minority § Indeed His minority when I would search for his minority or the first source and fountain of that large fluency of eloquent and pious literature with which he alway abounded they are like the fontes Nili springs of Nilus hardly to be found he scarce had any Minority comparatively to others except in growth and stature for he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says of himself Gal. 1.4 above his equals or coetaneans superior or major in abilities when inferior or minor in years Thus as he grew in age and stature so he grew also in wisdom and favour both with God and man Luk. 2.52 He was as the sons of Giants giantly infants giantly children giantly boyes giantly youths and gyantly men or like the Sun still the Sun at morning noon and night in its rise height and decline he never suffered any lessening or eclipse in himself § He suffered no diminutions but by the darknings of the times That fatal one upon this Church and State which befell him as a Bishop and his whole Order by the bold interposing of popular and headless Presbytery which in its due order not only preserved as Ignatius observes an holy harmony with Episcopacy but ever had as the Moon its light of holy Ordination and spiritval power from its aspect and respect to primitive and Catholick Episcopacy as the Sun But this sad diminution of him and other worthy Bishops was more a publick than a private disaster which even Presbytery it self hath found while the populacy or vulgar people like the earth do revenge even on that envious Moon the eclipse and injury it did to the Sun and to it self for as Episcopacy was turned into the sackcloth of mourning so Presbytery into the blood of war of fury of popular and endless factions for how can Presbyters keep their union lustre and honor but in conjunction with and subordination to Episcopacy as St. Cyprian long ago urged against some heady Presbyters in his days who lived in the second Century § The best method to take the exaltations and dimensions of this bright star which was one of the first magnitude is to observe his motions from his ascending to his decline and the several eradiations of his imitable worth When the Nurse of the Grammer-School had fitted him for his Mother the Vniversity His comming to the Vniversity he was sent in his fourteenth year to Pembrook-hall in Cambridge there his modesty pregnancy and piety soon invited preferment He was made first Schollar of the House and after Fellow a little sooner than either his years or standing in rigor of Statute permitted but the Colledge was impatient not to make sure of him by grafting him firmly into that Society which had been famous for many excellent men but for none more than for Ralph Brounrig when Batchelor of Arts when Master in Arts when Batchelor of Divinity when Doctor of Divinity and when Bp. of Exceter for as he fairly ascended every step or degree so he was ever thought no less to adorn than to deserve his advancements § His florid and fruitfull wit when first he appeared in publique to give testimony of his abilities and proficiency it is not to be expressed how sweet and welcome the very first productions of his most florid and fertile soul were which had the fragrant blossoms of a most facetious and inoffensive wit the fair leaves or ample ornaments of his most eloquent tongue the most pleasant fruits of Philosophy History Poetry and all sorts of ingenuous Arts and Sciences well digested accurately fitted to all occasions these at length raised to Divinity well grounded on Scripture and adorned by the study of antiquity the Fathers Councils and histories of the Church made him appear as one of the goodliest trees in the Paradise or garden of God the Vniversity and Church of England § His memory and eâ—oquence assisting his wit and parts He had always cum fideli memoria uberrimum ingenium beatam facundiam with an happy memory wit and words that were ful free without pumping or hesitancy set forth with an elocution or tone which was grandiloquent dictatorian and imperial he was at once profitably pleasant as Jothams vine and figtree to God and man His great wit was not forced frothy or affected but native apt and free muchless had it any thing muddy in it of prophaness scurrility or immodesty but chast ingenuous and innocent still tempered with such serious learned and pious mixtures or such grave retreates and closes that it seemed no other than beauty well dressed or goodness appearing in a fair and chearful Summers day having nothing of those melancholy clouds or winter dejections of more gloomy tempers He made the proof and experiment good That wit which is a kind of gaiety of fancy and luxuriancy of a ready invention is to be reckoned as beauty and handsomness among the good gifts of God when well used a jewel too bright and precious to be cast before swine or troden under the foul feet of wanton Poets of prophane and ridiculous Atheists who fancy they can out-wit God while yet non tam credunt quam cupiunt non esse Deum they rather wish there were not than believe there is no God being most sadly to be pitied when they seek to make themselves merry and the Devil to laugh by their grieving and mocking God or playing with the Scriptures and holy things which they disbelieve Quia malunt extingui quà m ad supplicia reparari as Minut. Felix speaks of the resurrection because they chuse annihilation rather than penal reparation § But here wit was consecrated to the
than others according as they were settled by civil compacts and politick agreements or constitutions of State where the Laws of the Land give any stop restraint or limit to Princes power and proceedings by putting some co-ordinate and cautionary power into some orderly way and legal procedure whereby to vindicate or assert the rights of Subjects there he judged the great Arbitrator of just and unjust lawful and unlawful was the Law of the Nation as Mans and Gods Ordinance which who so brake Prince or People was a transgressor against God and Man who so pursued was unblameable in which case the Lawyer was to go before and the Divine to follow as to resolution of conscience § But for Subjects who were once by publick consent of Laws and many oaths bound to the limits and inclosures of obedience and legal subjection for these to affect a liberty under pretence of Religion as Christians or of any common priciples and natural freedoms as men beyond the established rules and boundaries of the Laws this he thought such a fanatick fetch as would undo and overthrow all Government for where is there any Christian State so setled in which some men will not quarrel with the Laws as too strait-laced for their either spiritual or natural liberties their consciences or conveniencies that is for their lusts and licenciousness their ambition or covetousness or their revenge and discontents § People ungoverned their own greatest oppressors He found by reading and experience that no Tyrannies and Oppressions of any lawful Prince were ever so heavy upon any Nation as when it turns its own Tyrant and fals under a popular self-oppression by inordinate and immoderate affectations of liberty and oppositions to legal and setled Soveraignty as was evident in the passionate Apostacy of the Ten Tribes from Davids house pretending Solomons exactions when it is better to be oppressed by one wise Prince than to be left to popular liberties which ruine Church and State § He judged as one true God is beyond ten thousand Idols so was one Lawful Soveraign with a wise Council and a settled Law beyond all the many headed and many handed Hydra's of any popular parity or other forms of Government whatsoever § For he had observed that warlike and populous Nations are much more crushed and bruised with their own weight like heavy bodies when they fall from an higher station or posture then when they are only bastonadoed with a cudgel or not mortally wounded with a sword which blows have as far less pain and expence of blood or spirits so greater possibility and speed of recovery § Though he was a very learned and well-read Schollar yet he had not studied Marianas or other Jesuitish Catechisms as to those reserves in point of civil subjection and obedience by which they allow either one great Pope or many little ones to dominier over Soveraign Princes or chief Magistrates upon any account of Christs Kingdom and spiritual power § He was more versed in the Bible of the Bishops translation than in any Papal glosses or others Annotations § However being a Father of the Church he thought it became him to be a very dutiful and obedient Son to the King as Father of his Country in England who was under God Grandfather of Church and State by a Law that invested him in a Soveraignty or Monarchy subject to no power on earth § This he judged the safest way as to inward and outward peace in conscience and prudence for men and Christians for Church and State Accordingly when O. P. with some shew of respect to him demanded his judgment in some publick affairs then at a nonplus his Lordship with his wonted gravity and freedom replied My Lord The best counsel I can give you is that of our Saviour Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods with which free answer O. P. rested rather silenced than satisfied When he had accepted to be a Bishop I think he had sinned if he refused Gods call to that Office and honor being so able so worthy What damps and distances he found from some Ministers after they saw he was an eclipsed Bishop and so willing to have done good as in all times so in such a time as that was the Amphibian Ministers who could live in Presbytery or Episcopacy as their interest led them when they saw the Northern tempest strong the tide to turn and this good Bishop with others not likely to enjoy the estates and honors of their Bishopricks Then O then began some of those Preachers whose Darling Crown and Triumph whose almost adoration and Idol Dr. Brounrig had sometimes been now they began to withdraw from him to keep a loof and at distance to look as strangers on him and to be either afraid or ashamed to appear before him such a reproach and maul his very presence constancy and gravity were to their popular and time-serving inconstancies that many became his enemies because he persevered in the truth they once asserted and had now deserted by the confutation and conversion which tumults and arms had made on their spirits more than any new reasons and arguments § Others were so peevish and spiteful against him not as Dr. Brounrig but as an unfortunate Bishops that to revenge their own sin and folly on their betters they after the Lystrian levity Act. 14.18 19. endeavored to stone him and other Bishops whom they once had reverenced as Gods consenting to and applauding his expulsion out of the House of Lords out of the Colledge and University yea and to his deposition as much as humane power and malice could from his Episcopal Office and Authority which yet he failed not while he lived as he had power and opportunity to discharge § If he had as a Bishop met with better times as to Christianity or worse as to Heathenish barbarity so as to have shined fully and steadily in one of those golden Candlesticks of the Church for which he was fitted I make no doubt but the most benign influence of so able so affable so amiable so consciencious so compleat a Bishop would have wrought as great effects in any Diocess where he lived as Gregorius Thaumaturgus is said to have done in his Scythian Bishoprick where when he came first to them he found but fifteen Christians when he left them he left but so many Heathens or Infidels amonst them Bishop Brounrig was as likely as any man to have been a Thaumaturgus to have wrought miracles in this age if they had been so just moderate and wise as to have made use of his oracular wisdom in grand and publick concerns or to have trusted to the counsels of such Schollars as much as of Soldiers § His publick prudential ability Possibly other men and Bishops might have as much learning but few that ever I knew had his incomparable clearness candor solidness sweetness dexterity eloquence and great
domesticks to enjoy him in any constant receptions or addresses as some of his friends and many others oft did to their great content and none either more welcomly or more deservedly than the liberal and noble soul of Mr. Thomas Rich Esq of Sunning in Barkshire of whose ready heart and large hand to works of charity I could here give a particular and great account upon my motion to him but that his modesty hath oft severely forbad me to speak of it being satisfied with Gods reward which I pray he and his may never want It is enough to say of that worthy Citizen that generous Gentleman and most charitable Christian that his name deserves to be with honor thus registred and engraven to all posterity That he was the special friend of Bishop Brounrig An honor as great and deserved as that which the Lord Brook affected to make his Monumentremarkable to after ages by his inscribing and Friend to Sir Philip Sidney § Of this Bishops excellent endowments and manners I may say as Suetonius doth of Augustus his Looks Forma per omnes aetatum gradus constanti he was not only in all ages a very comly person but did all things at all times steadily and handsomly The indignities and afflictions which were cast upon him by the torrent of times as a Bishop and counter byassed to them yet as a rock in the sea or a brazen wall he indured them unmoved unmolested his constant and judicious wisdom remained with him while he saw factious and giddy spirits wasting themselves while they foamed out their own shame he enjoyed a bright and unblemished fame with a good conscience having had no hand in the mutation or misery of Church or State § Indeed he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen said of Athanasius to commend him is to commend verrue or wisdom or health or the light of the Sun not that as St. Augustine says of another Casta magna illa anima humanas laudes aut cupit aut curat that good and great soul either living desired or now departed needeth the sparks of humane praises to set forth its splendor Quem caeli habent laudabilem laudatum quid de novo in cipiam laudare super terram as St. Bernard speaks he that is as praise-worthy praised now in heaven with Well done good and faithful servant is not concerned with our praises on earth § But we and the ages to come which are like to be dark and blind enough and the more for his absence do need the radiancy and beams of such illustrious and exemplary worth which the more indignly it was treated and buried alive by some mens envy or malice the more studiously do I endeavour that he and his deserving name or rather the instances of Gods glory in him may live after his death Paterns of moderate vertues may like lesser gems or sparks of Diamonds be frequent but compleat ones like Paragon jewels are few in any age such he was and so to be valued § The truth is the world was not worthy of such a man that is the partial plebeian factious parasitick paralitick giddy ungrateful world though it needed such as Antidotes and Physicians being very sick and so distempered as not to endure any remedy Having been long surfeited with former peace and prosperity poisoned with factions and discontents yea and cloyed with a kind of wontedness and satiety of Religion The concurrence of excellency in him § As it was said of old In uno Homero omnes Poetae in uno Cicerone omnes Oratores in uno Aristotele omnes Philosophi in one Honter were all Poets in one Tully all Orators and in one Aristotle all Philosophers and in one Varre Polybius or Plutarch all the good learning of all learned men So I may say there was in one Bishop Brounrig the quintessence of all good Christians all good Schollars all good Divines all good Preachers and all good Bishops In him one might find the sincerity of the anitent Fathers and the solidness of later Divines the Schoolmen did not exceed him in acuteness nor the best Casuists in exactness nor the soberest Monasticks in devotion and sanctity § His liberal and charitable soul He had the learning of Nazianzen Basil or Jerom the courage and constancy of Athanasius and St. Ambrose the eloquence of St. Chrysostom and Chrysologus the mildness and gentleness of St. Cyprian or St. Austin the charity and benignity of Paulinus and Martinus sect His contentedness and patience when stripped of all c. When he could not have common equity from others yet he exacted Christian charity from himself to others he would give de modico almost de nihilo of that little meal and oyl that was left him or by others supplied to him and if he could not give de suo yet he would de se of his paternal prayers and benedictive comprecations nor was any man more exact and faithful in the distributing other mens charities committed to him as some good Obadiahs did of later years when even among the Prophets of the Lord good Ministers then were so many pittiful objects of charity to the joy and triumph of the Jesuites and Roman Priests as much as to the reproach and shame of the Reformed Profession which some pretend to without equity or charity When the storms of the times had stripped him of all publick emoluments as to the revenues and perquisites of his Bishoprick yet aequiore animo sua damna pertulit quà m alii sua lucra he shewed a greater mind in bearing his losses than others did in getting their gains yea he was more deeply affected for the wickedness of those that lay under the real guilt or vehement and just suspition of so foul a sin as Sacriledge than for the loss he sustained by it he was prone to say chearfully If others had more right to those Lands and Houses than the Bishops and other Churchmen in Gods name let them take them but they that either alienated or bought or fold them had need to have a better title than either the present proprietors and possessors had by Law or the Church and State in equity or the King by Soveraignty or the Donors by their Deeds or God as Lord Paramount to whose glory they were devoted In the alienation of these Church estates he looked more to the hand of God which was probative and punitive than mans which was predatorious and passionate I once heard him after his wonted smiling yet venerable manner of speaking profess that he took it a little unkindly that those Lords and Gentlemen who heretofore had professed an ambition to see him a Bishop and did with great courtship congratulate his coming to sit in the House of Lords not only that they should be great sticklers to destroy all Bishopss as to their honor and estates but that they would not now so much as let him have their Committee power to gather
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