and therefore I say that the bond of this Christian fraternity which we are commanded to retain and to love all that are comprehended within it though it be woven like Josephs coat Gen. 27.3 with some diversity of thred and threds of many colours yet ought it not to be easily broken and soon cut in sunder and the mercies of God should not be too narrowly contracted for why should men be more rigid then God or why should any errour exclude men from the Churches Communion which will not deprive them of eternal salvation and we find that in the Apostles time the Corinthians denied the Resurrection of the flesh which is a principal Article of our Christian faith and the Galathians erred as fowly in one of the chiefest and most fundamental points of Christianity which was the point of our justification so far that S. Paul tells them if they be circumcised as many of them would be that is after they had embraced the truth of the Gospel they were fallen away from grace and Christ should profit them nothing and many other foul errours they had amongst them and yet the holy Apostle in regard of their profession to be Christians and their Christian conversation to lead a just and an upright life calleth them Saints brethren his children and the Churches of God Chillings p. 220. And so the seven famous Churches of Asia were infected with many errours and accused of foul corruptions and yet the holy Ghost denieth them not to be Christians and disdaineth not to call them the Churches of God And therefore I say though the Papists and Puritans Anabaptists and Brownists and the like differ from us that are the true Protestants in many particular points of our Religion yet while they professe to believe in Christ What are the chiefest points of charity and to live like Christians in the fear of God in true obedience to their King and in unfeigned love and charity towards their neighbours which I conceive to be the chiefest points of Christianity and the parts and parcels of our wedding garment I say they are our brethren and to be deemed our Christian brethren and we ought to love them and are obliged to live in peace with them and to suffer them unwronged to live peaceably with us and not to do as in the madnesse of their misguided zeal too too many men are bent on either side to hate persecute rob and murder one another because they will not be of the same opinion as we are or they are of which is a thing impossible in nature because Faith cannot be compelled either to believe what I list not or not to believe what I list as Lactantius saith and it is inconsistent with the very Principle of our profession that we should rob men and take away their estatesâ—s because they will not professe the same Faith and Religion that we do for compulsion may make men hypocrites but not Saints and you know the chiefest points of our Christian Religion are Faith Hope and Charity and the Apostle tells us the greatest of these is Charity because our love and our charity as they are of a far greater perpetuity so they should be of a far greater latitude and extent then our Faith and Hope can be And therefore What we are to hate and what to love in all Sectaries and professors of Religion though my knowledge and my judgment will not suffer me to be of the same Faith either with the Papists Puritans Anabaptists or the like erroneous Sectaries but perswadeth me to hate and detest both their Positions and their Practices yet my Religion teacheth me to love their persons and in my conversation to live in Peace and to joyn the right hand of Christianity with them and rather desire to exceed them in all the Offices of love then any wayes to shew the least hatred or do the least injury to any one of them all and withall to pray for them and to use all loving means to bring them to repentance for their errours and to embrace the truth This which I professe is the readiest way to winne them for as the Scripture saith Prov. 10.12 Hatred stirreth up strife but love covereth a multitude of sins and is the readiest way to convert the sinner And I think if men did this and not break the bond of love nor straighten the extent of this brotherhood they might the sooner be reduced to imbrace the same truth and to be united in the same faith because true love is the most attractive thing in the world and the want of love is the cause that so much wickednesse doth abound even as our Saviour testifieth And therefore it is most requisite that we should be very earnest and very often to insist upon these points and to urge these duties to honour all men and to love the brotherhood And so having heard that no Christian that is baptized and professeth the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be excluded from this Brother-hood We are now to confider wherein the love of this Brother-hood consisteth and what this Extensive love includeth in it and upon survey we shall find it to comprehend 1. An Vnfained affection of good-will unto them without dissimulation to wish them all happiness and prosperity not only in words but even from our very hearts 2. An Earnest endeavour to procure them all the good that their necessity requireth so far as it lyeth in our power to help them As 1. To pray for them that God would bless them and preserve them from all evil and save them even as S. Paul saith Brethren Rom. 10.1 my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved 2. Most cheerfully to administer to their necessities in all that lieth in our abilities for that is the Apostle's meaning both in his Epistle to the Romans chap. 12.13 And in this 1 Tim. 6.17 18. Chrysost in loc as S. Chrysostom sheweth saying Non solum pecuniis sed verbis rebus corpore aliis quibuscunque modis vult nos juvare egenos the Apostle would have us to help the needy not only with our purses but also with our words in speaking for them and with our labours to do them good and to preservs them from all manner of damage in their estates yea Rom. 12.20 without any difference of friends or foes for so the Apostle bids us If thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink And so the Lord saith if thou meet est thine enemyes Oxe or his Ass going astray thou shalt surely bring hem back again to him Exod. 23.5.6 and if thou seest the Ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden and thou wouldst forbear to help him thou shalt surely help him or leave thy business to help him O most heavenly and divine love how happy were we if we were filled with such love and how
and made a simple conversion of White to Black and of Good to Evil. For As I shall answer for what I say at the Dreadfull day of Judgment I do here profess that in all mine Observation of what I saw and what I heard of the Lords and Gentlemen of His Court in so many years as they know I lived therein which was ever since King James died till the Wars began I knew neither Lord nor Knight nor Gentleman nor any other man whatsoever neither have I read in any Historie Greek or Latine of any Emperour or King I will not except Constantine nor Theodosius nor St. Edward of Ingland that was a juster King a wiser Governour and a better man then King Charles that was so Pious in his Devotions so just and upright in all His Actions so sweet in His Disposition so loving to His Friends so mild to His Servants so ready to forgive His Enemies and so free from all revenge for His greatest wrongs that when His own Subjects and Servants so Undutifully and Maliciously Rebelled and Warred against Him and bespotted His Innocent Conversation and pure Life with most false and venomous Aspersions I heard him say I thank God I can freely forgive all my Enemies and I pray God that God would forgive them and I dare boldly affirm it and can justifie it that He was as good a Protestant if not the best Protestant in all the Christian World and I am sure the best Protestant King or Prince that ever England saw who when I came unto Him immediately after Edg-Hill-fight and said that whatsoever otherwise we wanted in our Abilities yet our Prayers should never be wanting to beseech the Almighty God night and day to bless Him and to protect Him from all His Adversaries He answered that He thanked us for our Prayers and desired us to continue our Prayers still as He hoped we would do for Him because He suffered all this War and whatsoever else should betide Him for our sake and for the defence of the true Protestant Religion as it was Established in the Church of England and for the preservation of the known Laws of these Kingdoms and all the while I lived in His Court I never saw the man Clergy or Laity that shewed himself so punctually professing the Protestant Religion and so zealously and regularly observing the true service of God as His gracious Majestie What other Character I should give to this most excellent Prince for a loving faithfull Husband to His Queen and for a dear indulgent Father to all His Children His goodness therein is very very far beyond my ability of Expression as it is indeed in all the other particulars so that the praise and Eulogie which Homer gave to Achilles and Ulysses Virgil to Aenaeas Xenophon to his Cyrus Eusebius to Constantine and Osorius to Emmanuel King of Portugal I may truly ascribe to Him or rather what the Prophet Jeremy and the Son of Sirach saith of the good King Josias or the Scripture of King David that he was a man according to God's own heart so I hope and believe that I may say with out mistake without offence that King Charles the First was a man according to God's own heart and though as Christ non dimidiavit dies suos so God did soon bring this good King to His death that He might be soon delivered from the contradictions of Sinners and soon brought to enjoy the glorious Crown of Eternal life yet was He most blessed both in His life and death as hereafter I shall more fully shew unto you And therefore I had rather say no more then to say too too little as I shall when I say my best of this most gracious and now most glorious King Charles the First And though he was so good so gracious and so pious a King yet this good gracious and incomparably pious Protestant King the gentlest meekest and of the sweetest disposition of all the men I ever saw was as you well know most rebelliously Warred against most Judas-like sold most treacherously betrayed and most maliciously Barbarously and for the spiteful mischeivous manner thereof most Jewishly and unexpressably Murthered and many more Noble-men and Gentle-men Clergy and Laity Murthered in like manner onely for His sake and for the truth of their Loyalty unto Him and their Fidelity unto God as I have Mystically and yet fully shewed in my Book of The great Anti-Christ revealed and in these Treatises following And can any thing so fowly defile the Land and so highly provoke the Wrath and Indignation of God against his people as the shedding of so much Innocent Blood or shall we think that the just God will rest satisfied and contented to have his Wrath appeased especially if we consider what he saith to the three sons of Noah Gen. ix 5 6. and of the Bloody sins of Manasses 2 King xxiv 4. and to Ahab for letting Benhadad to escape 1 King xx 42. when he seeth the pretious Blood of so Good so Gracious and so Pious a King His own Vicegerent and the Blood of so many faithfull Christians Noble-men Gentle-men and other loyal Subjects that have lost their lives for their constancie in professing the true service of God the right Faith of Christ and their duty and loyalty to their true and lawfull King left unexpiated and according to the Law of justice unrevenged and unpunished The truth of God saith Not so therefore His now gracious Majestie lest His filiall affection of so good and so loving a Father and His anger and indignation against such monstrous Murtherers might seem to transport Him with Passion to be over-partial too rigid and too severe in His censure against these Murderers did most wisely religiously and Christian-like transmit the Judgment and Punishment of these transcendent Malefactours to his Parliament who as he knew had infinitely suffered most unspeakable Detriment and Dammage as well though not near the like nor so much as himself in the loss of their so good a King And the late Parliament that was The Keepers of the Liberties of Ingland by the Authority of our Parliament and you may compute what Number of Arithmetical Letters this name contained and had very many of the King's Enemies in it and therefore likely not to do all things so well as they should do yet hath it most gallantly religiously and justly sentenced many of them to death and the just God without Question doth most propitiously accept and approve of all those their doings which are just according to his own Precepts But though herein they have done very well yet do you think that they have done sufficiently well I will not presume to teach them that in State Affairs are better able to be my Teachers then I to advise their Wisdoms what they ought to have done yet as I am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must humbly crave leave to set down what I conceive to be the just Will of God
Majestie most faithfully and freely to dispose of it all for the reparation of the body of the Cathedral Church of Saint Keney that Your Majestie may see Your Petitioner doth not so earnestly prosecute the recovery and restoring of those Lands and Lordship of Upper-Court unto the See of Ossorie for the enriching of himself that blessed be God for it hath enough both for himself and his but for the benefit of the House and Church of God Or if Your Majestie think not well to continue Your former gracious Grant thereof unto the Church Your Petitioner humbly prayeth You would be pleased to further Your Petitioner to recover from Robert Shee the former Possessor to whom it is now restored the twenty years Rent that is unpaid and is due to your Petitioner ever since the Rebellion began and before and which amounteth to two hundred Pound beside the forbearance of them the which Your Petitioner conceiveth to be most just and agreeable to all Law Equity and Conscience And for the rest of the Minister's Livings through what fate or by what means I know not but through the just Judgment of God that disposeth all things wisely so it is that very many of the poor Protestants which were robbed and plundered by the Irish Rebels are not one jot the better by the subduing of the Rebels and Displantation of the Romane Catholicks but with the Irish and like the Irish do live most poorly and have as hard a Task to get their own former Estates out of the Soldier 's hands as to pull the Club out of Hercules his hands as it appeareth by their dealing with my self when upon my Petition unto the House of Peers to be restored unto the Bishop's Lands that my Predecessor dyed seised of I had an order of the Lords unto the Sheriffs to put me into the Possession of it which was so totally detained from me that I had not so much Lands left me about Kilkenny as would feed a Goose and when the Sheriffs according to mine Order came to deliver me Possession of it a Captain of the Long Parliament that had it given him as he said for his Arrears stood before the Sheriffs and told them they should not tread upon his Lands until he had his Reprisal for it and because I knew him to be a Member of the House of Commons I advised the Sheriff to let him alone and by no means to intrench upon their Privilege conceiving that hereby he hath more affronted the whole House of Lords in withstanding their Order then he hath done me and if they pass by such an Affront I may far better do it and if the Soldiers deal thus with me that am their Bishop and a Member of the Higher House of Parliament how hardly think you shall the other poor Protestants and the rest of the Country Gentlemen that have been these many years kept out of their Estates get their Lands and Possessions out of their hands let Blackwel's Case be for instance Yet truly I must needs confess that the Temporal Lords both of the Roman Religion and the Protestants at all times have and do shew themselves most faithful and loyal to Your Majesty and both favourable unto our Church and without any superciliousness very friendly with us that are their Bishops and most willing to further us to all our Rights and to grant us any lawful favour and especially to assist us to root out those weeds that disturb us in the Government of God's Church and the restoring and setting forward the true Service of God amongst our People But the Colonels and Captains and the rest of the Soldiery that subdued the Rebels have the most part of the Kingdom in their Possession and are very tenacious of what is in their Hands and do live gallantly and very fairly and yet in many places the Country is left un-inhabited and the best parts but thinly peopled and the ground lying well nigh waste for the most part untilled and ill-stocked so that the Livings which formerly were worth an hundred pound a piece per annum are now set for little more then twenty pounds a piece as mine own Rectory of Rath-Saran and Rath-downy that before the Rebellion were reputed to be worth above an hundred pounds per an were set the last year for twenty six pounds and the Lands of Bishop's-Logh that my Predecessour did set to his own Son for eighty pounds per annum was this last year and before set to Mr. Feak for twenty pound and the like by reason of which slender means and tenuity of the Livings I found that the Commissioners for setting the Tythes and setling Ministers to preach unto the people granted to one Mr. Kearny that had three Parishes before 7 or 8. Parishes more and yet all those scarce able to make him a reasonable Maintenance of an hundred pound per annum so they granted six to one Mr. Brooks though he was no lawful ordained Minister and Mr. Blake had six Parishes given unto him by the Mayor and Burgesses of Waterford and all not worth above twenty pounds per annum as appeareth by his Presentation and this subsequent Letter unto my self HONOVRED SIR WE the Mayor Sheriffs and Citizens of the City of WATERFORD having in our Power by Charter from King CHARLES the First of ever blessed Memory and before by his Ancestors the Presentation of a Minister to the Vicarages of KILL CULLEHENE RATH-PATRICK BALLY GOREN KILL MAKEVOY MACKOLLY and WHITCHURCH with the Donation thereof all which amounts to twenty and one Pounds or thereabouts per annum and having by consent in Council presented RICHARD BLAKE Clerk to the same VVE earnestly pray that if your Lordship have any in your Dispose that lyeth contiguous thereto that your Lordship would please to favour him therein and it will thankfully be acknowledged by us and what you please to command that is in our Powers you may freely command Waterford the 20. th November 1660. Your LORDSHIPS affectionate Friends and Servants DAVIES Mayor Sam. Brinsmead Sheriffs Sam. Brown Sheriffs The Cause of which Sterility of Fruit and Scarcity of Means and the thinness or fewness both of Houses and Inhabitants I conceive to be that the Adventurers and Soldiers have got the most part of the Lands of the Bishops and Protestants that the Irish drave away and all the Lands of the Rebels and Roman Catholicks into their own Hands and are neither willing to part with it nor able to till it manure it and replenish it with Tenants and Husbandry as it ought to be Indeed I do confess and it is most true that if the Irish Rebels Popish Priests and Romane Catholicks had had their Wids neither Protestant Bishop nor any other Protestant should ever have had any foot of Land in all the Kingdom of Ireland And you know what Lex talionis saith to them but that we ought to be more merciful and to write our wrongs in the Dust and not in
and other places round about and that only for Religion and not for worldly Dominion which is the suffering of the Christians under the Turk that permitteth any profession so they yield themselves to his subjection He must ingenuously confess this truth of Isidorus that the greatest of all Persecutions is that which is prosecuted by the Ministry of Antichrist that now raigneth in the world But if you would desire to know who is this Antichrist that now reigneth and thus rageth in the world I answer VVho is the Great Antichrist divers opinions That although many good Arguments are produced to prove the Great Turk to be that Great Antichrist and Constantinople to be that Babylon which is the Throne of that bloudy beast and as many good Arguments are alleadged by Powel Whitaker Downham Thompson and others of our Protestant Writers to prove that series paparum from Boniface in Phocas time to this present Pope is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of by St. Paul 2 Thes 3. and that Rome is his proper seat and so called Babylm by St. Peter Yet divers others of no small Learning do avouch That as Ecclesia credentium corpus cum capite the whole Catholick Church of Christ head and members is said to be and is so termed unus Christus one Christ as in Joh. 3.13 And Christ saith unto Saul Why persecutest thou me when he persecuted his Church So Ecclesia malignantium the Congregation of the wicked or especially Senatus consultus the great Sanedrim of the people the supream Counsel A pack of wicked men is termed the Antichrist and the highest Court of any Nation which is the representative mystical body of that dispersed and nefarious Synagogue is oftentimes for their unanimous consent in all wickedness spoken of quasi unus homo as if they were but one man because they all have but one head one will and one end to destroy the truth and the true Church of Christ And this supream stool of wickedness that establisheth mischief by a Law 2 Thes 3.8 doth now appear to many men to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That man of sin and the child of perdition whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming because they say First There is neither Note Argument Saying nor Testimony of holy Scripture that doth competere antichristo and is sutable unto Antichrist but it is most properly found to agree with that Cumulus Senatorum the representative Council of all wickedness As 1. They have seated themselves in a mystical Babylon the Amsterdam of all confusion where you may easily find almost all Heresies maintained that have been invented and any Religion used but the true Religion that dares not be professed 2. They do sit in the Temple of God as God that is they do possess the truest Church of God that we know to be on earth and as God they establish Worship and Religion and ordain Laws for the Government of that Church and root out that Worship and Government which God himself hath ordained 3. They exalt themselves above all that is called God i.e. Above Kings This point of the Great Antichrist is fully and at large handled in my Book of The Great Antichrist revealed of whom the Scripture most properly saith Dixi Dii estis I said you are Gods because they are in Gods stead and do exercise Gods Power here on Earth and yet this grand Council of the Great Synagogue would not only be worshipped themselves as Kings but will suppress Kings deny any service to be done to them and suffer none to do them Worship which is properly to exalt themselves above Kings when they keep Kings so low 4. When by their false assembled Prophets they deny the Notions whereby we understand the Father and the Son to be the true God as they plainly do by the cashiering of the words Essence Person Trinity and the like words which the Church of God penes quam norma loquendi hath ever used to bring her Children thereby to some sure knowledge of that great mystery of godliness and to inable them to confute those wicked Hereticks that denied the same they do manifest themselves to be that Antichrist who as St. John saith denieth the Father and the Son 1 Joh. 2.22 which neither Turk nor Pope as yet ever did 5. The unfolding of that great mystery of the Beast Aug de Civitat Dei l. 20. c. 9. 14. which Beast St. Augustine understandeth of the Society of wicked Christians and the City of Satan that is signified by that Beast and the mystery which the Holy Ghost setteth down to be observed as the most proper Note of the Beast is that it containeth 666. touching which if you omit one thousand which is a full and perfect number and which is not an unusual thing in the Scripture to do to make the other the more mystery and consider that in 646. this great Sanedrim or superlative Council demanded the Militia or soveraign rule over the King for twenty years which being added to 646 do make up the just number of 666. This they say is a strong Argument to prove the grand Council to be that Great Beast 6. And lastly The unspeakable unparalelled persecution of this Antichrist above all the persecutions that preceded it either of Pope Turke or heathen Tyrants do plainly prove them to the judgment of some men to be the greatest Antichrist that as yet is revealed unto the world though some think that a greater may yet come before Christ does come to judgment which I do not believe But though I say as St. Augustine doth in the like case Alii atque alii aliud atque aliud opinati sunt Divers men have divers opinions about the time place and person of Antichrist which neither my Text nor my time will give me leave either to discuss or to disprove any of the same now Yet thus much I dare boldly say that letting pass the persecutions of the Preachers not to be paralelled in any History if you consider first the number of them all the Reverend Bishops all the Deans all Prebends and all the best Divines in the whole Kingdom And 2. the misery that is imposed upon them worse than death Quia dulce mori miseris To be spoyled of all their means banished from all their friends wife children and Parents and exposed to all wants and contempts so that neither Nero Domitian Dioclesian nor Julian brought such a storm upon the Church of Christ as is now brought upon the body of the whole Clergy within these five years and omitting the many thousands of good Christians No Historian can shew me any king that hath suffered more indignities at any â—nchristian hand than King Charls hath suffered from the Long Parliament that for their Religion and good conscience have lost their lives livings and liberties I say letting
more then thirty three years olde by his malitious enemies so the like enimies have shortened the life of this good King and cut him off at the eight and fourtieth year of his age yet as Esay saith of Christ Generationem ejus quis enarrabit who shall be able to declare his Generation for he shall see his seed and shall prolong his days and as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me saith the Lord so shall his seed and his name remain that is for ever and ever so I doubt not to say of King Charles that howsoever and for what cause soever the wisdom of God hath been pleased to permit his enemies to shorten that life which at the best and to the best is accompanied with abundance of infelicities yet instead of that Crown which was replenished with cares and circumvironed with thorns and which his persecutors have snatched from him God hath now crowned him with eternal felicity and hath set a crown of pure gold upon his head that is as himself said the crown of Martyrdom which is the crown of the greatest glory because none can go higher or do more for Christ then to dy for Christ for the defence of the service and servants of God and the laws of this Kingdom as he testified upon the Scaffold And so the Lord hath dealt with him just as he saith of his chosen people for a small moment have I forsaken thee that is while I suffered thine enemies so furiously to rage against thee and so maliciously to behead thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment when in justice I punished thee for thine errors those small things wherein thou hast failed but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee when as now I make thee to be numbred with my Saints in glory everlasting Therefore as Balaam wished that he might dy the death of the righteous and that his last end might be like his Numb 23 10. so from my soul I wish that my soul may rest as I hope it shall when it leaves my body with this righteous King that doth now rest in Abraham's bosome CHAP. II. SEcondly For of his other subjects that were against him I shall speak in an other place touching the King's subjects that honoured loved and served him and were of his party and have been and still were persecuted banished killed and afflicted so long as the Tyrants ruled they are either 1. Clergy or And 2. Laity or And First as for the Clergy that are the other second witness of Jesus Christ they are either 1. the Bishops 2. the Priests And whatsoever hath befallen to these or to either of these I may truly and justly say with Ezra Ezra ix 13. and God hath punished us less then our iniquities deserved First Touching the Bishops that are the prime part of the spiritual Witness of Christ I do cordially love all their persons and honour their calling being all of them very learned and most reverend men and therefore not to discover the nakedness of such worthy Fathers whose imperfections and imbecillities like neves in a fair face I had rather with the good King like the most Christian Constantine cover with the lap of my garment then expose them to the view of the Vulgar but yet to justify the doings of our just God whose Judgments alwaies are according to truth I must say as Christ saith to the Angel that is the Bishop of the Church of Ephesus and to the Angel of the Church of Pergamus that God had somewhat against them and I fear more then he had against those Angels for which he might most justly remove their candlesticks and remove them Two things considerable in all Clergy-men as he did out of their places For there be two things considerable in the calling of all God's Ministers as well those of the highest as the other of the lowest order 1. Their introduction or coming into their places 2. The Execution of their office after they are entred into it For first Their entrance into that holy calling So the Articles of our Church and of our religion testify Whosoever shall not be called by the spirit of God to the great office as Aaron was or shall not enter through the gate that is Christ or the Ordinance of Christ set down by his holy Apostles is a thief and a robber and not the Vicar of Christ but of Judas Iscariot and of Simon the Samaritan but whether all our Bishops came rightly in I cannot judg we cannot search into the testimony of any man's conscience yet for the investigation of the truth and the outward election and approbation of them which Dionysius calleth the Sacrament of Order I am sure the King was so careful that none should be admitted to that high and holy office but such as should be thought worthy both for uprightness of life and soundness of learning of those places whereof most of them The execution of their office if not all of them he knew to be such himself 2. For the execution of their office they were to do it 1. by the example of a good life 2. by the discharging of their Episcopal duties First By a good example of a just and holy conversation because By a good example as the Poët saith Exemplar vitae populis est vita regentis The common people look rather after our example then after our Precept Christs slock to be sed three ways therefore the Expositours do apply the thrice repetition of the same thing to Saint Peter Feed my Sheep to a threefold manner of feeding that is 1. Pasce verbo 2. Pasce cibo 3. Pasce exemplo First Feed them with the word of God and with good instruction With the word of God how they ought to behave themselves as becometh Saints and what to believe like good Christians 2 With Alms-deeds Secondly Feed the poorer sort with food and alms-deeds so far as thy means and ability will give thee leave Thirdly Feed all of them with the good examples of humility meekness With good examples gentleness patience piety contentedness and contempt of these worldly vanities And here I must confess that instead of giving good Example unto the People many of the Bishops that were our Predecessours gave the worst example that could be both to their succeeding Bishops and to all other people whatsoever The evil Example of our Predecessors if the example of covetousness injustice and neglect of God's Service be evil examples for what pious men and good Christians had formerly bestowed upon the Church and Church-men for the honour of God and the promoting of the Christian Faith they either through covetousness for some Fine or affection to their Children Friends or Servants have alienated the same from their Successours in Fee-Farmes or long Leases some for a 1000. some for an 100. years Whereby we
amori nostri placide ac benigne pro nobis mori dignatus est which for the purchasing of our Salvation did most chearfully and readily vouchsafe to suffer a most shameful death for us for so much only we do love God as we love him more than we love any thing else though the same should be never so lovely And in very deed our love to his honour and our care of his service and the maintaining of his truth can never be near so much performed as we ought to do Therefore let others laugh at our too-much love to God and our too hot zeal to promote his truth and to maintain his service yet I shall never condemn the nature of those men that with the zeal Phinees and the boldness of St. Peter are sometimes violent and vehement in these proceedings but I shall blame them that know not when and wherein it is fitting to be so for in this our love to God if it be directed to the right end though we should fail in the manner We cannot love God too much nor near so much as we ought tō love him yet we can never fail in the measure of loving God because as when the subject of our hatred is sin it cannot be too deep So when the Object of our love is God it cannot be too high and they that with the Laodiceans are but warm when God requireth them to be hot can never be freed from sin when their moderation is become a transgression and their Sobriety is belied into a Vertue which had it been done by Elias John Baptist and the rest of the Prophets and Apostles and the Fathers of the Primitive Church we had been deprived of much truth and they had failed of the Crown of Martyrdom Yet I deny not but a man may eat too much honey and in Solomons sence Men may be too precise a man may be righteous overmuch and make himself over-wise that is if I might expound it make those things to be sins to be superstitious to be Idolatrous to be Popish which are not so as the English Rebels throughout all Ingland now do and to make that for Gods service and teach those things for truths which are not so As the Romish Priests throughout all this Kingdom do but to love God too much to be too careful to obey Gods Precepts or too vehement to publish what we know to be a truth most necessary to be known it is the Sophistry of Satan to say this is too much And yet I say not that every Christian doth or can love God in so great a measure as is required of him or as many others have and do love him for as there are degrees of faith That there are divers degrees as of Faith so of Love so there are degrees of love and every degree of spiritual love proceeds from a proportionable act of saving faith And therefore as our faith so our love is subject to all variations and changes ebbings and flowings according to the strength of our perswasions or the violence of our desertions And as some men are indued with a greater measure of faith than others be when as some have no more than a grain of mustard seed and that mixed with much anxiety and others are strong in faith like Abraham that doubted nothing of Gods Promise notwithstanding all the impediments that might cross it so some men have but an ordinary love to God and others are indued with a more eminent and heroical love And such was the love of the Primitive Christians when the rage of the Pagans was so great against them Eus l. 4. c. 15. l. 5. c. 1. that to be a Christian was a sufficient accusation to draw them to their execution as it appeareth by those two memorable examples of Attalus and Polycarpus for as they made Attalus to walk about the Amphitheater of the Lions there was a little Tablet born before him wherein those four words were only written Eus l. 4. c. 15. l. 5. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is Attalus the Christian and when Polycarpus was led to his Execution the Governour commanded the Cryer to make Proclamation that Polycarpus had confessed himself to be a Christian And yet such was their Constancy and so great was their love to Christ that they did not only say with Ignatius Ure tunde divelle Burn me kill me tear me to pieces yet thou shalt never draw me from my Saviour Christ but they did also suffer the most exquisite torments that could be invented with such incredible patience that the sight thereof was so far from terrifying the beholding Christians that it rather enflamed them to undergo the like tortures The great love of the Primitive Christians unto God for as they were leading Ptolomaeus an honourable person to a most dishonourable death only because he had confessed himself to be a Christian Lucius another Christian seeing this injustice of Urbicius the Governour goeth unto him and demands What reason is it that thou shouldst put Ptolomaeus to death for confessing himself to be a Christian seeing he hath not committed Adultery nor Murder and thou canst not prove him a Thief or a Ravisher or guilty of any crime or iniquity therefore thy Sentence doth no credit unto the Emperour Antoninus the meek nor to his Son nor to the Senate of Rome To whom Urbicius answered nothing but only asked Lucius if he was a Christian Who replyed Yes that I am and was therefore presently led to his execution For which injustice he joyfully thanked Urbicius that by this means he should be delivered out of the hands of such cruel Masters and should go to God his most loving Father And albeit in the time of the Apostles and the Primitive Fathers the Persecutions raised against the Christians were thus cruel Isidor de summo bono l. 1. c. 28. and so tyrannical that many good minds cannot read or remember the same without weeping Yet Isidorus tells us That in the time of Antichrist and towards the end of the world the Synagogue of Satan and the wordly Senate shall more furiously rage against the Church of Christ and the City of God than ever he did in the Primitive times for Satan was to be bound for a thousand years Rev. 20.2 whereby his malice was chained and his power abridged that the Church might have some refreshment and therefore if the devil saith he when he was fast bound handled the Martyrs so cruelly then surely he will do much more when he shall be unchained which shall be and now is in the time of Antichrist Thumus Hist l. 6. C ham de crudel Antich l. 16. c. 15. Mr. Fox And truly I think that whosoever readeth Thuanus and Chamier and the book of the Martyrs of our Church and consider the Massacres of those Christians that within this last Century of years have suffered in France Germany Spain Italy