VII. the Wealth of Bishops be carefully preferved from BOOK further diminution? The travels and croffes wherewith Prelacy is never unaccompanied, they which feel them know how heavy and how great they are. Unlefs fuch difficulties therefore annexed unto that estate be tempered, by co-annexing thereunto things efteemed of in this World, how fhould we hope that the minds of Men, fhunning naturally the burthens of each function, will be drawn to undertake the burthen of Epifcopal care and labour in the Church of Chrift? Wherefore if long we defire to enjoy the peace, quietness, order and ftability of Religion, which Prelacy (as hath been declared) causeth, then must we neceffarily, even in favour of the publick good, uphold those things, the hope whereof being taken away, it is not the mere goodness of the charge, and the divine acceptation thereof, that will be able to invite many thereunto. What fhall become of that Commonwealth or Church in the end, which hath not the eye of Learning to beautify, guide, and direct it? At the length, what fhall become of that Learning, which hath not wherewith any more to encourage her induftrious Followers? And finally, what fhall become of that courage to follow Learning, which hath already fo much failed through the only diminution of her chiefeft rewards, Bishopricks? Surely, wherefoever this wicked intendment of overthrowing Cathedral Churches, or of taking away thofe Livings, Lands, and Poffeffions, which Bifhops hitherto have enjoyed, fhall once prevail, the handmaids attending thereupon will be Paganism and extreme Barbarity. In the Law of Mofes, how careful provifion is made that goods of this kind might remain to the Church for ever! Ye ball Numb. not make common the holy things of the Children of Ifrael, left ye die, faith the Lord. Touching the fields annexed unto Levitical Cities, the Law was plain, they might not be fold; and the reafon of the Law this, for it Lev. xxv. was their poffeffion for ever. He which was Lord and owner of it, his will and pleafure was, that from the xviii. 32. 14. 17. BOOK. Levites it fhould never pafs to be enjoyed by any VII. other. The Lord's own portion, without his own commiffion and grant, how fhould any Man justly hold? They which hold it by his appointment, had Ezek. xlvii. it plainly with this condition, They fhall not fell of it, neither change it, nor alienate the first fruits of the land; for it is bo'y unto the Lord. It falleth fomeHabak. ii. times out, as the Prophet Habakkuk noteth, that the very prey of favage beasts becometh dreadful unto themselves. It did fo in Judas, Achan, Nebuchadnezzar; their evil purchased goods were their snare, and their prey their own terror; a thing no where fo likely to follow, as in those goods and poffeffions, which being laid where they should not rest, have Mal. iii. 9. by the Lord's own teftimony his moft bitter curse; their undividable companion. These perfuafions we use for other Men's cause, not for theirs with whom God and Religion are parts of the abrogated Law of Ceremonies. Wherefore not to continue longer in the cure of a fore desperate, there was a time when the Clergy had almost as little as thefe good people wish. But the Kings of this Realm and others, whom God had bleft, confidered devoutly with themselves, as David in like case fometimes had done, Is it meet that we at the bands of God fhould enjoy all kinds of abundance, and God's Clergy fuffer want? They confidered that of SoloProv. iii. 9. mon, Honour God with thy fubftance, and the chiefeft of all thy revenue; fo fhall thy barns be filled with corn, and thy veffels fhall run over with new wine. They 2 Chron. confidered how the care which Jehofaphat had, in providing that the Levites might have encouragement to do the work of the Lord cheerfully, was left of God as a fit pattern to be followed in the Church for ever. They confidered what promise our Lord and Saviour had made unto them, at whose hands his Prophets should receive but the leaft part of the meaneft kind of friendliness, though it were but a draught of water: which promise feemeth not xix. to to be taken, as if Chrift had made them of BOOK any VII. higher courtesy uncapable, and had promised reward not unto fuch as give them but that, but unto fuch as leave them but that. They confidered how earnest the Apostle is, that if the Minifters of the Law were fo amply provided for, lefs care then ought not to be had of them, who under the Gofpel of Jefus Chrift poffeffed correfpondent rooms in the Church. They confidered how needful it is, that they who provoke all others unto works of mercy and charity, fhould especially have wherewith to be examples of fuch things, and by fuch means to win them, with whom other means, without thofe, do commonly take very small effect. In these and the like confiderations, the ChurchRevenues were in ancient times augmented, our Lord thereby performing manifeftly the promise made to his Servants, that they which did leave either Father, or Mother, or Lands, or Goods for his fake, fhould receive even in this World an bundred fold. For fome hundreds of years together, they which joined themselves to the Church, were fain to relinquish all worldly emoluments, and to endure the hardness of an afflicted eftate. Afterward the Lord gave reft to his Church, Kings and Princes became as Fathers thereunto, the hearts of all Men inclined towards it, and by his providence there grew unto it every day earthly poffeffions in more and more abundance, till the greatnefs thereof bred envy, which no diminutions are able to fatisfy. For, as thofe ancient Nurfing-Fathers thought they did never beftow enough; even fo in the eye of this prefent age, as long as any thing remaineth, it seemeth to be too much. Our Fathers we imitate in perverfum, as Tertullian speaketh; like them we are, by being in equal degree the contrary unto that which they were. Unto those earthly bleffings which God as then did with fo great abundance pour down upon the Ecclefiaftical State, we may in regard of moft near refemblance, apply the felf-fame words which the Prophet hath, God blessed them ex- Pfal. cv. ceedingly, 24, 25. T 4 BOOK ceedingly, and by this very mean turned the hearts of their VII. own Brethren to hate them, and to deal politickly with his Servants. Computations are made, and there are huge fums fet down for Princes, to fee how much they may amplify and enlarge their own treafure; how many public burthens they may eafe; what prefent means they have to reward their Servants about them, if they please but to grant their affent, and to accept of the fpoil of Bifhops, by whom Church-Goods are but abused uno pomp and vanity. Thus albeit they deal with one, whofe princely virtue giveth them fmall hope to prevail in impious and facrilegious motions; yet fhame they not to move her Royal Majetty even with a fuit not much unlike unto that wherewith the Jewish High Prieft tried Judas, whom they folicited unto treafon against his Mafter, and propofed unto him a number of filver pence in lieu of fo virtuous and honeft a fervice. But her Sacred Majefty difpofed to be always like herself, her heart fo far eftranged from willingness to gain by pillage of that Estate, the only awe whereof under God the hath been unto this present hour, as of all other parts of this noble Commonwealth, whereof fhe hath vowed herself a protector till the end of her days on earth, which if Nature could permit, we wifh, as good caufe we have, endless this her gracious inclination is more than a feven times fealed warrant, upon the fame affurance whereof touching time and action, fo difhonourable as this, we are on her part most secure, not doubting but that unto all Pofterity it fhall for ever appear, that from the first to the very laft of her fovereign proceedings there hath not been one authorized deed other than confonant with that Symmachus faith, Fifcus bonorum Principum non Sacerdotum damnis fed Lib. x. Ep. Hoftium fpoliis augeatur ; confonant with the Imperial Law, Ea quæ ad beatiffimæ Ecclefiæ jura pertinent, tanquam ipfam facrofan&tam et religiofam Ecclefiam inta&ta convenit venerabiliter cuftodiri; ut ficut ipfa Religionis et Fidei Mater perpetua eft, ita ejus Patrimonium jugiter fervetur illæfum. As for the cafe of publick burthens, 54. DDD. L. xiv. C. de facrof. Ecclef. let VII. let any Politician living make it appear, that by con- BOOK fifcation of Bishops' Livings, and their utter diffolution at once, the Commonwealth fhall ever have half that relief and eafe which it receiveth by their continuance as now they are, and it fhall give us fome cause to think, that albeit we fee they are impiously and irreligiously minded, yet we may efteem them at least to be tolerable Commonwealths-men. But the cafe is too clear and manifeft, the World doth but too plainly fee it, that no one order of Subjects whatfoever within this Land doth bear the feventh part of that proportion which the Clergy beareth in the burthens of the Commonwealth: no revenue of the Crown like unto it, either for certainty or for greatnefs. Let the good which this way hath grown to the Commonwealth by the diffolution of religious Houses, teach Men what eafe unto publick burthens there is like to grow by the overthrow of the Clergy. My meaning is not hereby to make the state of Bifhopricks, and of thofe diffolved Companies alike, the one no lefs unlawful to be removed than the other. For thofe religious Perfons were Men which followed only a special kind of contemplative life in the Commonwealth, they were properly no portion of God's Clergy (only fuch amongst them excepted, as were alfo Priests) their Goods (that excepted, which they unjustly held through the Pope's ufurped power of appropriating Ecclefiaftical Livings unto them) may in part feem to be of the nature of Civil poffeffions, held by other kinds of Corporations, fuch as the City of London hath divers. Wherefore, as their inftitution was human, and their end for the most part fuperftitious, they had not therein merely that holy and divine intereft which belongeth unto Bifhops, who being employed by Chrift in the principal fervice of his Church, are Receivers and Difpofers of his patrimony, as hath been fhewed, which whofoever hall withhold or withdraw at any time from them, he undoubtedly robbeth God himself. If they abuse the |