church, or delivered up to Satan, but because the law of the kingdom takes holds of them. After so many days a man cannot sue, no not for his wife, if you take her from him; and there may be as much reason to grant it for a small fault, if there be contumacy, as for a In Westminster Hall you may great one. outlaw a man for forty shillings, which is their excommunication, and you can do no more for forty thousand pounds.

IV. When Constantine became Christian, he so fell in love with the clergy, that he let them be judges of all things; but that continued not above three or four years, by reason they were to be judges of matters they understood not, and then they were allowed to meddle with nothing but religion; all jurisdiction belonged to him, and he scanted them out as much as he pleased, and so things have since continued, They excommunicate for three or four things matters concerning adultery, tithes, wills, &c. which is the civil punishe ment the state allows for such faults. If a bishop excommunicate a man, for what he ought not, the judge has power to absolve and punish the bishop; if they had that jurisdiction from God, why does not the church excommunicate for murder, for theft? If the civil power might take away all but three things, why may they not take them away too? If this excommunication were taken away, the Presbyters would be quiet; it is

that they have a mind to, it is that they wouldfain be at. Like the wench that was to be married; she asked her mother when it was done, if she should go to bed presently. No, says the mother, you must dine first-and then to bed, mother? No, you must dance after dinner-and then to bed, mother? No, you must go to supper-and then to bed, mo-> ther? &c.

FAITH AND WORKS.

I. IT was an unhappy division that has been made between faith and works; though in my intellect I may divide them; just as in the candle, I know there is both light and heat. But yet put out the candle and they are both gone, one remains not without the other so it is betwixt faith and works; nay, in a right conception, fides est opus, if I believe a thing because I am commanded, that is opus.

FASTING DAYS.

I. WHAT the church debars us one day, she gives us leave to take out in another. First we fast, and then we feast; first there is a Carnival, and then a Lent.

II. Whether do human laws bind the conscience? If they do, it is a way to ensnare;

if

if we say they do not, we open the door to disobedience.

Answer. In this case we must look to the justice of the law, and intention of the lawgiver; if there be no justice in the law, it is not to be obeyed; if the intention of the lawgiver be absolute, our obedience must be so too; if the intention of the law-giver enjoin a penalty as a compensation for the breach of the law, I sin not if I submit to the penalty; if it enjoin a penalty, as a future enforcement of obedience to the law, then ought I to observe it, which may be known by the often repetition of the law. The way of fasting is enjoined 'unto them, who yet do not observe it the law enjoins a penalty as an enforcement to obedience; which intention appears by the often calling upon us to keep that law by the king, and the dispensation of the church to such as are not able to keep it, as young children, old folks, diseased men, &c.

I. IT hath ever been the way for fathers to bind their sons; to strengthen this by the law of the land, every one at twelve years of age is to take the oath of allegiance 'in court leets, whereby he swears obedience to the King.

FINES.

I. THE old law was, that when a man was fined, he was to be fined salvo contene mento, so as his countenance might be safe, taking countenance in the same sense as your countryman does, when he says, " if you

will come unto my house, I will shew you. the best countenance I can," that is, not the best face, but the best entertainment. The meaning of the law was, that so much should, be taken from a man, such a gobbet sliced off, that yet notwithstanding he might live in the same rank, and condition he lived in before; but now they fine men ten times more than they are worth,

FREE WILL.

I. THE Puritans, who will allow no free will at all, but God does all, yet will allow the subject his liberty to do, or not to do, notwithstanding the King, the god upon earth. The Armenians, who hold we have free will, yet say, when we come to the King, there must be all obedience, and no liberty to be stood for.

FRIAR S.

I. THE friars say they possess nothing; whose then are the lands they hold? not their supe

superior's; he hath vowed poverty as well as they; whose then? To answer this, it was decreed they should say they were the Pope's. And why must the friars be more perfect than the Pope himself?

II. If there had been no friars, Christendom might have continued quiet, and things remain at a stay.

III. If there had been no lecturers, who succeed the friars in their way, the church of England might have stood, and flourished at this day.

FRIENDS.

I. OLD friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes, they were easiest for his feet.

GENEALOGY OF CHRIST.

I. THEY that say the reason why Joseph's pedigree is set down, and not Mary's, is, because the descent from the mother is lost, and swallowed up say something; but yet if a Jewish woman married with a Gentile, they only took notice of the mother, not of the father; but they that say they were both of a tribe-say nothing; for the tribes might marry one with another, and the law against it was only temporary, in the time while Joshua was dividing the land, lest the being

D 3