: resolved to spend his life wholly in the service of God but yet neither was he unwilling to die, because he then knew he should weep no more, and he should sin no more. He was very confident, but yet with great humility and great modesty, of the pardon of his sins; he had indeed lived without scandal, but he knew he had not lived without error; but as God had assisted him to avoid the reproach of great crimes, so he doubted not but he should find pardon for the less; and, indeed, I could not but observe, that he had, in all the time of his sickness, a very quiet conscience; which is to me an excellent demonstration of the state of his life, and the state of his grace and pardon. For though he seemed to have a conscience tender and nice, if any evil thing had touched it; yet I could not but apprehend that his peace was a just peace, the mercy of God, and the price and effect of the blood of Jesus. He was so joyful, so thankful, so pleased in the ministries of the church, that it gave in evidence where his soul was most delighted, what it did apprehend the quickest, where it did use to dwell, and what it did most passionately love. He discoursed much of the mercies of God to him, repeated the blessings of his life, the accidents and instruments of his trouble; he loved the cause of his trouble, and pardoned them that neither loved it nor him. psalms sung, which I wish were made as fit to sing Ergo Quinctilium perpetuus sopor 66 Faith and justice, modesty and pure righteousness, made him equal to the worthiest examples; he was xpnoròs ȧvno, a good man," loving and humble, meek and patient, he would be sure to be the last in contention, and the first at a peace; he would injure no man, but yet if any man was displeased with him, he would speak first, and offer words of kindness; if any did dispute concerning priority, he knew how to get it, even by yielding and compliance; walking profitably with his neigh When he had spent great portions of his time of sickness in the service of God, and in expectation of the sentence of his life or death, at last he un-bours, and humbly with his God; and having lived derstood the still voice of God, and that he was to go where his soul loved to be; he still increased his devotion, and being admonished, as his strength failed him, to supply his usual forms, and his want of strength and words, by short exercise of virtues, of faith and patience, and the love of God; he did it so willingly, so well, so readily, making his eyes, his hands, and his tongue, as long as he could, the interpreters of his mind, that as long as he was alive, he would see what his soul was doing. He doubted not of the truth of the promises, nor of the goodness of God, nor the satisfaction of Christ, and the merits of his death, nor the fruit of his resurrection, nor the prevalency of his intercession, nor yet doubted of his own part in them; but expected his portions in the regions of blessedness, with those who loved God, and served him heartily and faithfully in their generations. He had so great a patience in his sickness, and was so afraid lest he should sin at last; that his piety outdid his nature, and though the body cannot feel but by the soul, yet his soul seemed so little concerned in the passions of the body, that I neither observed, nor heard of him, that he in all his sickness so much as complained with any semblance of impatience. He so continued to pray, so delighted in hearing a life of piety, he died in a full age, an honourable old age, in the midst of his friends, and in the midst of prayer: and although the events of the other world are hidden to us below, that we might live in faith, and walk in hope, and die in charity, yet we have great reason to bless God for his mercies to this our brother, and endeavour to comport ourselves with a strict religion, and a severe repentance; with an exemplar patience, and an exemplar piety; with the structures of a holy life, and the solemnities of a religious death, that we also may, as our confident and humble hope is, this our brother doth, by the conduct of angels, pass into the hands and bosom of Jesus, there to expect the most merciful sentence of the right hand, "Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world." Amen, Lord Jesus, Amen. Grant this, eternal God, for Jesus Christ's sake; to whom with thee, O Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all glory and honour, service and dominion, love and obedience be confessed due, and ever paid by all angels, and all men, and all the creatures, this day, henceforth and for evermore. Amen. GENERAL DEDICATION ΤΟ THE POLEMICAL DISCOURSES. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND TRULY NOBLE CHRISTOPHER LORD HATTON, BARON HATTON OF KIRBY, PRIVY COUNCILLOR AND COMPTROLLER OF THE HOUSEHOLD TO HIS LATE MAJESTY, MY LORD, WHEN We make books and publish them, and by dedications implore the patronage of some worthy person, I find by experience that we cannot acquire that end, which is pretended to by such addresses; for neither friendship nor power, interest or favour, can give those defences to a book, which it needs: because the evil fortune of books comes from causes discernible indeed, but irremediable; and the breath of the people is like the voice of an exterminating angel, not so killing but so secret. But that is not all; it is also as contingent as the smiles of an infant, or the fall of a die, which is determined by every part of motion which can be in any part of the hand or arm. For when I consider that the infinite variety of understandings is greater than that of faces, not only because the lines that make our faces are finite, but the things that integrate and actuate the understanding are not; but also because every man hath a face, but every man hath not understanding; and men with their understandings, or with their no understandings, give their sentence upon books, not only before they understand all, not only before they read all, but before they read three pages, receiving their information from humour or interest, from chance or mistake, from him that reads in malice, or from him that reads after dinner; I find it necessary that he that writes, should secure himself, and his own reputation, by all the ways of prudence and religion; that God, who takes care of fame as certainly as of lives, may do that which is best in this instance; for no other patron can defend him that writes from him that reads, and understands either too much or too little. And therefore, my Lord, I could not choose you to be the patron of my book, upon hopes you can, by greatness or interest, secure it against the stings of insects and imperfect creatures; nothing but Domitian's style can make them harmless; but I can, from your wisdom and your learning, the great reputation you have abroad, and the honour you have at home, hope that, for the relation sake, some will be civil to it, at least until they read it, and then I give them leave to do what they please, for I am secure enough in all this; because my writings are not intended as a stratagem for noises; I intend to do not only what is good, but what is best; and therefore I am not troubled at any event, so I may but justly hope that God is glorified in the ministration: but he that seeks any thing but God's service, shall have such a reward as will do him no good. But finding nothing reasonable in the expectation that the dedication should defend the book, and that the gate should be a fortification to the house, I have sometimes believed that most men intend it to other purposes than this, and that, because they design or hope to themselves (at least at second hand) an artificial immortality, they would also adopt their patron or their friend into a participation of it: doing as the Cæsars did, who, taking a partner to the empire, did not divide the honour or the power, but the ministration. But in this also I find, that this address to your Lordship must be destitute of any material event, not only because you have secured to yourself a great name in all the registers of honour, by your skill and love to all things that are excellent, but because, of all men in the world, I am the unfittest to speak those great things of your Lordship, which your worthiness must challenge of all that know you. For, though I was wooed to love and honour you by the beauties of your virtue, and the sweetness of your disposition, by your worthy employments at court, and your being so beloved in your country, by the value your friends put upon you, and the regard that strangers paid to you, by your zeal for the church, and your busy care in the promoting all worthy learnings, by your religion and your nobleness; yet when I once came into a conversation with these excellencies, I found from your Lordship not only the example of so many virtues, but the expressions of so many favours and kindnesses to my person, that I became too much interested to look upon you with indifferency, and too much convinced of your worthiness to speak of it temperately; and therefore I resolve to keep where I am, and to love and enjoy what I am so unfit to publish and express. But, my Lord, give me leave to account to you concerning the present collection; and I shall no otherwise trouble your Lordship than I do almost every day, when my good fortune allows me the comfort and advantages of your conversation. The former impressions of these books being spent, and the world being willing enough to receive more of them, it was thought fit to draw into one volume all these lesser books, which at several times were made public, and which, by some collateral improvements they were to receive now from me, might do some more advantages to one another, and better struggle with such prejudices, with which any of them hath been at any time troubled. For, though I have great reason to adore the goodness of God, in giving that success to my labours, that I am also obliged to the kindness of men for their friendly acceptance of them; yet when a persecution did arise against the church of England, and that I intended to make a defensative for my brethren and myself, by pleading for a liberty to our consciences to persevere in that profession, which was warranted by all the laws of God and our superiors, some men were angry and would not be safe that way, because I had made the roof of the sanctuary so wide that more might be sheltered under it than they had a mind should be saved harmless : men would be safe alone, or not at all, supposing that their truth and good cause was warranty enough to preserve itself; and they thought true; it was indeed warranty enough against persecution, if men had believed it to be truth; but because we were fallen under the power of our worst enemies, (for brethren turned enemies are ever the most implacable,) they looked upon us as men in mispersuasion and error; and therefore I was to defend our persons, that whether our cause were right or wrong, (for it would be supposed wrong,) yet we might be permitted in liberty and impunity. But then the consequent would be this: that if we, when we were supposed to be in error, were yet to be indemnified, then others also, whom we thought as ill of, were to rejoice in the same freedom, because this equality is the great instrument of justice; and if we would not do to others as we desired should be done to us, we were no more to pretend religion, because we destroy the law and the prophets. Of this some men were impatient; and they would have all the world spare them, and yet they would spare nobody. But because this is too unreasonable, I need no excuse for my speaking to other purposes. Others complained that it would have evil effects, and all heresies would enter at the gate of toleration; and because I knew that they would crowd and throng in as far as they could, I placed such guards and restraints there as might keep out all unreasonable pretenders; allowing none to enter here that speak against the apostles' creed, or weakened the hands of government, or were enemies to good life. But the most complained, that in my ways to persuade a toleration, I helped some men too far, and that I armed the anabaptists with swords instead of shields, with a power to offend us, besides the proper defensatives of their own. To this I shall need no reply but this; I was to say what I could to make their persons safe, by showing how probably they were deceived; and they who thought it too much, had either too little confidence, or too little knowledge of the goodness of their own cause; and yet if any one made ill use of it, it was more than I allowed or intended to him, but so all kindness may be abused: but if a criminal be allowed counsel, he would be scorned if he should avow his advocate as a real patron of his crime, when he only says what he can to alleviate the sentence. But wise men understand the thing and are satisfied; but because all men are not of equal strength; I did not only in a discourse on purpose demonstrate the true doctrine in that question, but I have now in this edition of that book answered all their pretensions, not only fearing lest some be hurt with their offensive arms, but lest others, like Tarpeia the Roman lady, be oppressed with shields, and be brought to think well of their cause by my pleading for their persons. And now (my Lord) I have done all that I can do, or can be desired, only I cannot repent me of speaking truth, or doing charity; but when the loins of the presbytery did lie heavy upon us, and were like to crush us into flatness and death, I ought not to have been reproached for standing under the ruin, and endeavouring to defend my brethren; and if I had strained his arm whom I was lifting up from drowning, he should have deplored his own necessity and not have reproved my charity, if I say I had been too zealous to preserve them whom I ought to love so zealously. But I have been told, that my Discourse of Episcopacy, relying so much upon the authority of fathers and councils, whose authority I so much diminish in my Liberty of Prophesying, I seem to pull down with one hand what I build with the other: to these men I am used to answer, that they ought not to wonder to see a man pull down his out-houses, to save his father and his children from the flames; and, therefore, if I had wholly destroyed the topic of ecclesiastical antiquity, which is but an outward guard to episcopacy to preserve the whole ecclesiastical order; I might have been too zealous, but in no other account culpable: but, my Lord, I have done nothing of this as they mistake * This and similar expressions refer to the original folio edition. For episcopacy relies, not upon the authority of fathers and councils, but upon Scripture, upon the institution of Christ, or the institution of the apostles, upon a universal tradition, and a universal practice, not upon the words and opinions of the doctors: it hath as great a testimony as Scripture itself hath ; and it is such a government, as although every thing in antiquity does minister to it, and illustrate or confirm it; yet, since it was before the fathers and councils, and was in full power before they had a being, and they were made up of bishops for the most part, they can give no authority to themselves, as a body does not beget itself, or give strength to that from whence themselves had warranty, integrity, and constitution. We bring the sayings of the fathers in behalf of episcopacy, because the reputation they have justly purchased from posterity, prevails with some, and their reason with others, and their practice with very many; and the pretensions of the adversaries are too weak to withstand that strength; but that episcopacy derives from a higher fountain, appears by the justification of it against them who value not what the fathers say. But now, he that says that episcopacy, besides all its own proper grounds, hath also the witness of antiquity, to have descended from Christ and his apostles; and he that says, that, in questions of religion, the sayings of the fathers alone is no demonstration of faith, does not speak things contradictory. He that says that we may dissent from the fathers, when we have a reason greater than that authority, does no way oppose him that says, you ought not to dissent from what they say, when you have no reason great enough to outweigh it. He that says the words of the fathers are not sufficient to determine a nice question, stands not against him, who says they are excellent corroboratives in a question already determined and practised accordingly. He that says, the sayings of fathers are no demonstration in a question, may say true; and yet he that says, it is a degree of probability, may say true too. He that says they are not our masters, speaks consonantly to the words of Christ; but he that denies them to be good instructors, does not speak agreeably to reason or to the sense of the church. Sometimes they are excellent arbitrators, but not always good judges: in matters of fact they are excellent witnesses; in matters of right or question they are rare doctors, and because they bring good arguments, are to be valued accordingly; and he that considers these things, will find that ecclesiastical antiquity can give very great assistances to episcopal government, and yet be no warranty for tyrannical; and although even the sayings of the fathers is greater warranty for episcopacy, and weighs more than all that can be said against it; yet, from thence nothing can be drawn to warrant to any man an empire over consciences; and, therefore, as the probability of it can be used to one effect, so the fallibility of it is also of use to another; but yet even of this no man is to make any use in general, but when he hath a necessity and a greater reason in the particular; and I, therefore, have joined these two books in one volume, because they differ not at all in the design, nor in the real purposes, to which, by their variety, they minister. I will not pretend to any special reason of the inserting any of the other books into this volume; it is the design of my bookseller to bring all that he can into a like volume; excepting only some books of devotion, which, in a lesser volume, are more fit for use. As for the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, which, because I suppose it may so much contribute to the interest of a good life, and is of so great and so necessary consideration to every person that desires to be instructed in the way of godliness, and would assure his salvation by all means; I was willing to publish it first in the lesser volume, that men might not, by the increasing price of a larger, be hindered from doing themselves the greatest good to which I can minister; which I humbly suppose to be done, I am sure I intended to have done, in that book. And now, my Lord, I humbly desire, that although the presenting this volume to your Lordship can neither promote that honour, which is and ought to be the greatest, and is, by the advantages of your worthiness, already made public, nor obtain to itself any security or defence from any injury, to which, without remedy, it must be exposed; yet if you please to expound it as a testimony of that great value I have for you, though this signification is too little for it, yet I shall be at ease awhile, till I can converse with your Lordship, by something more proportionable to those greatest regards which you have merited of mankind; but more especially of, My Lord, Your Lordship's most affectionate Servant, VOL. II. L OF THE SACRED ORDER AND OFFICES OF EPISCOPACY, BY DIVINE INSTITUTION, APOSTOLICAL TRADITION, AND CATHOLIC PRACTICE. TOGETHER WITH THEIR TITLES OF HONOUR. SECULAR EMPLOYMENT, MANNER OF ELECTION, DELEGATION OF THEIR POWER, AND OTHER APPENDANT QUESTIONS, ASSERTED AGAINST THE AERIANS AND ACEPHALI, NEW AND OLD. There is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God.-Roм. xiii. 1. Δικαία ἡ κρίσις των Πατέρων. ПáνTES тà avтà Xiyoμev.-CONCIL. CHALCED. TO THE TRULY WORTHY AND MOST ACCOMPLISHED SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON, KNIGHT OF THE HONOURABLE ORDER OF THE BATH. SIR, I AM engaged in the defence of a great truth, and I would willingly find a shroud to cover myself from danger and calumny; and although the cause both is, and ought to be, defended by kings, yet my person must not go thither to sanctuary, unless it be to pay my devotion, and I have now no other left for my defence; I am robbed of that which once did bless me, and indeed still does, (but in another manner,) and I hope will do more; but those distillations of celestial dews are conveyed in channels not pervious to an eye of sense, and now-a-days we seldom look with other, be the object never so beauteous or alluring. You may then think, Sir, I am forced upon you; may that beg my pardon and excuse; but I should do an injury to your nobleness, if I should only make you a refuge for my need (pardon this truth); you are also of the fairest choice, not only for your love of learning, (for although that be eminent in you, yet it is not your eminence,) but for your duty to holy church, for your loyalty to his sacred majesty. These did prompt me, with the greatest confidence, to hope for your fair encouragement and assistance, in my pleadings for episcopacy, in which cause religion and majesty, the king and the church, are interested, as parties of mutual concernment. There was an odd observation made long ago, and registered in the law, to make it authentic: "Laici sunt infensi clericis." Now the clergy pray, but fight not; and, therefore, if not specially protected by the king, "contra ecclesiam malignantium," they are made obnoxious to all the contumelies and injuries, which an envious multitude will inflict upon them. It was observed enough in King Edgar's time, "Quamvis decreta pontificum, et verba sacerdotum inconvulsis ligaminibus velut fundamenta montium fixa sunt, tamen plerumque tempestatibus, et turbinibus sæcularium rerum religio S. Matris Ecclesiæ maculis reproborum dissipatur ac rumpitur. Idcirco decrevimus nos," &c. a There was a sad example of it in King John's time. For when he threw the clergy from his protection, it is incredible what injuries, * In Charta Edgar. Regis A. D. 485. apud Hen. Spelman. |
