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
were not likely to have made a Liturgy of straw and stubble 2. For its excellent matter which is divine sound and holy besides its method which is prudent and good 3. For the very great good he saw it did as to all sober Christians so to the common sort of plain people who what ever other provision they had of their Ministers private abilities yet they were sure every Lords Day at least to have a wholesom and compleat form not only of Prayers but of all other necessaries to salvavation set before them for faith holy life and devotion in the Creeds Commandments Lords Prayer with Confessions and Supplications admirably linked together and fitted to the meanest capacities the want of which he saw was not supplied by any Ministers private way of praying or preaching which in very deed are but small pittances of piety or fragments compared to the latitude of religious fundamentals and varieties contained in the Liturgie the want of which he judged would induce a great ignorance as he saw and said to me a little before his death it had done already among the ordinary sort of people in Countrey and City whose souls are as precious to God as others of greater parts and capacities whose appetites were not to be flattered and deceived with novelties but fitted and fed with wonted solidities by which they would thrive look better as by the use of plain and repeated food which is as their daily bread than those that delight in greater varieties and dainties which may seem more toothsom to wanton palates but are not more wholesom or nourishing to honest hearts who are commonly less licorous in Religion and best content with what is best for them § Not that he was such a Formalist Verbalist and Sententiolist as could not endure any alteration of words or phrases or method or manner of expressions in the Liturgie to which either change of times or of language or things may invite he well knew there had been variety of Liturgies in Churches and variations in the same Church he made very much but not too much of the English Liturgie not as the Scriptures unalterable but yet he judged that all alterations in such publick and settled concerns of Religion ought to be done by the publick spirit counsel and consent of the Prophets Prince and People However this was a concluded Maxim with him That the solemnity and sacredness of consecrating those Christian mysteries of the blessed Sacraments were not to be adventured upon Ministers private abilities tenuities or distempers but by a publick and uniform spirit among Preachers and people all should say Amen to the same Prayers and receive the same mysteries under one form of consecration in which nothing should be defective or superfluous § His personal and occasional abilities for prayer were answerable to his other gifts and graces both for matter method utterance discretion and devotion full fervent and pathetick upon his own and others spirits not coldly formal and stark nor yet wildly rambling loose and broken but judicious apt grave and of so moderate an extent as suited the weight of the occasion the capacity of the auditors and the intensiveness of his own heart his prayers were not the labor and product only of lips lungs and tongue but of his spirit and understanding he minded not the glory but grace of prayer As to the Government of the Church by Episcopal Presidency His judgment of Church government by Episcopacy to which Prince and Presbyters agree he was too learned a man to doubt and too honest to deny the universal custom and practice of the Church of Christ in all ages and places for Fifteen hundred years according to the pattern at least received from the Apostles who without doubt followed as they best knew the mind of Christ This Catholick prescription he he thought so sacred that as it did sufficiently prejudge all novel presumptions so nothing but importune and grand necessities put upon any Church could excuse much less justifie the cutting off those pipes or the turning of that primitive and perpetual course of Ecclesiastical Ordination subordination and Government into another channel Nor did he understand the method of those new Vitruviusses who would seem Master-builders though they are yet but destroyers when they affect to have all timber and stones in the Churches building of the same shape size and bigness when the Church of Christ is compared to a body which hath members of different forms use and honor 1 Cor. 12. § Yet this worthy man had nothing of secular pomp or vain ambition in his thoughts meerly to bear up or bolster out a formal and titular Episcopacy with Goats hair like Michols image No he exacted worth and work And where true Bishops did the duties and good works belonging to the principal Pastors of the flock he thought they deserved double honor as Fathers and Governors among good Christians both of revenue and reverence § Yet he did not judge the principal dignity or authority of Episcopacy to depend upon its Secular advantages but on its Ecclesiastical custom and Apostolick institution and however no man was more ready to condescend to any external diminutions and comely moderations that might stand with a good conscience and prudence as tending to the peace and unity of the Church yet no man was more firm resolute and immovable from gratifying any Sacrilegious Projectors or proud Factionists or peevish Novellers to the reproach of the Church of England yea and of the Catholick Church in all the world which had its Bishops every where before it had its Bible or its Scriptures compleated In the matter of Episcopacy he differed little from Bishop Vshers moddel of the ancient Synodical Government only he thought the petulancy of mens spirit in these times beyond the primitive simplicity did require all prudent advantages of Order and authority which might consist with piety and true policy as antidotes ought to be heightned to the measure of the poison they are to encounter § He approved not a leveling party among Ministers Only he could never be induced so far to forsake the principle of all Reason Order and Government in humane societies or to disown the remarkable differences which God and Nature age and education experience and studies industry and grace did make between Ministers no less than other men as to think that neither work nor rewards of honor and estate may be proportioned to their different worths but that the youngest Schollar yea the meanest Schoolmaster if they can but now and then appear in a Pulpit and take Orders as they best fancy shall presently in all things of publick honor and Ecclesiastick authority run parallel to the greatest Schollars and gravest Divines so that either a beardless and juvenile petulancy or more aged but empty gravity shall in all points be level and justle with the most venerable worth and accomplished learning of those that are capable to
prudentia senex sanctitate Angelus As a child for harmlesness as a young-man for vigor as a son in his obedience to superiors as a Brother in his charity as a Father for his gravity as aged for his wisdom and as an Angel for his sanctity § His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great renown and publique fame But the evidence pregnancy and general renown of his great endowments and worth for learning and prudence for gifts and graces save me a great part of my labor for these were so well known to all the English world in Vniversities in Cities in Countries that in speaking of Bishop Brounrig I may fear to be as tedious and superfluous to you of this present age as if I should hold a candle to shew you the Sun which is sufficiently known by its own light if therefore I may seem to offend any of you by my prolixity be pleased to impute it to the charity and zeal I have for posterity that they may not be ignorant of what many are loth to know and own in this age the great worth of our late English Prelates and Reformed Bishops nor of the injustice of that late Sarcasm which joyns Prelacy and Popery together § He was for prelacy but for from Popery Here was much of a Primitive Prelate nothing of some modern Popes here was the learned industry and humble piety of antient Christan Bishops nothing of that Antichristian pride empty formality and impious hypocrisie which in the black and blind centuries many Popes who were but diseased hydropick over-grown and unsound Bishops have been guilty of by the confession of Baronius Platina and others of the Romish adhesion from which also I am far remote though a great vindicator of good Bishops § As Nazianzen speaks of his commending Hieron the Philosopher He was willing to appear so much a Philosopher as to commend and admire such a Philosopher So I cannot but appear so much Episcopal as to commend the excellencies of an excellent Bishop which some were as loth to see as willing to smother § Bishop Brounrig was a person of that soundness of judgement of that conspicuity for an unspotted life of that unsuspected integrity that his life was virtutum norma as St. Jerom of Nepotian It a in singulis virtutibus eminebat quasi coeteras non habuisset so eminent in every good and perfect gift as if he had had but one only This made him loved and admired most by those who had most experience of him He was not like those rough pictures and unpolished Statues which at a distance make a pretty shew Near hand minuit praesentia famam their commendation and comliness shrinks almost to nothing but either courtship and formality or the meer noise and vapor of vulgar credulity which is as prone to worship a gay Idol as a true Diety yea people are more taken with complemental froth than with the most accomplished worth § His openness and sincerity of life In this Coloss or Heroe of learned and real worth there was nothing dubious or dark nothing various or inconstant nothing formal or affected nothing that needs palliation or apology He lived always as at noon day never using or wanting any twilight or shadow I never heard of any thing said or done by him which a wise and good man would have wished unsaid or undone yet I had the happiness to know him above thirty years He always appeared as Isidor Pelus speaks of Timotheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sanctuary of sobriety a magazein of humanity a treasury of all vertue and a superlative object of just commendations no less than imitation § He was indeed an Evangelical Eliah potent and fervent in spirit yet not with a heat predatorious but propitious He was apt and able to every good word and work having great parts but little passions As little subject to the usual infirmities and transports incident to men of high and rare abilities as could be few cedars of so noble a procerity ever suffered less tempests or enjoyed more tranquillity within themselves The reason was this he had no leaven of pride at least not so turgent and predominant as either to sowre or swell his passions above his gracious perfections he had the gentleness of a Father the potency of a Prophet the wisdom of a Counsellor the gravity of a Bishop the majesty of a Prince the courage of a Champion he was like Sampson an Army in himself he was as a Troop of Chariots and horsemen strong and resolute for the defence of the true Christian and Reformed Religion with which this Church of England was once blessed both against the great Baals of Popery and the less Baalims of Popularity § So that if I had chosen this Text possibly you would have commended my discretion but as Jacobs venison it offered it self unhunted no other was thought on by me as I told you at first nor could any Jewel in the cabinet of Scripture have better born the characters or gravings of this excellent person and the occasion than this Text which I have wrought off before your eyes my work now is to set the signet of the Text thus graven not upon that dead wax or cold clay which is in that coffin but on that great spirit and that gracious soul whose goodly shrine and temple that body lately was I presume Iust and general Elogies of him I may without the envy or frown of any worthy person here present to honor this solemnity use the words of David at Abners funeral 2 Sam. 3.38 Know you not that this day there is a Prince so St. Jerom and others interpret that Psa 45.16 whom thou mayst make Princes in all lands of Bishops in all Churches I am sure a great man is faln this day in our Israel a Prophet yea more than an ordinary Prophet for as Christ said of John Baptist Among those that were born of women few have in all points equalled this worthy Bishop this reverend Father this gracious Lord who in that true Nobility of wisdom vertue grace and goodness had not many his Peers even among those who were so impatient to have such venerable persons full of prudence learning and piety sit with them or have any influence in the great Councils of Church and State whose presence one would think by the way of former ages was esteemed not only comely but necessary in a Christian Commonwealth to see as Representatives of the Church and Fathers of the Clergy Ne quid detrimenti patiantur aut Ecclesia aut Ecclesiastici for if Religion and Church-interests be left to Laymen only if they do not make a prey of it while it is worth a groat yet they are prone to finde other business and pursue designs of more pleasure profit or honor than Religion seems to most of them and many times as St. Ambrose observed to make mad work of Religion as the Arrians did when they appealed from