The Bible. Sir Thomas More's Opinion. "WHERE as many thynges be layde against it, yet is there in my mynde not one thyng that more putteth good men of the clergy in doubte to suffre it, than this that they se somtyme moche of the worse sorte more fervent in the callyng for it, than them whom we fynde far better. Which maketh them to fere lest suche men desyre it for no good, and lest if it were had in every mannes hande, there wold grete parell aryse, and that sedycyous peopl sholde do more harme therwith, than good and honest folke sholde take fruyte thereby. Which fere I promyse you nothynge fereth me; but that who so ever wolde of theyr malyce or foly take harme of that thynge that is of itselfe ordeyned to do all men good, I wold never for the avoydynge of | theyr harme, take frome other the profyte whiche they myght take, and nothynge deserve to lese. For els, yf the abuse of a good thynge sholde cause the takynge awaye therof from other that wolde use it well, Cryst sholde hymself never have been borne, nor brought his fayth into the worlde, nor God sholde never have made it neyther, yf he sholde for the losse of those that wolde be dampned wretches, have kept away the occasyon of rewarde from them that wolde with helpe of his grace, endevoure them to deserve it."-SIR THOMAS MORE's Dialoge, ff. 114-5. Luther's Declaration against War. "LUTHER and his followers among their other heresies hold for a plain conclusion, that it is not lefull for any Crysten man to fight against the Turk, or to make against him any resystance though he come into Crystendome with a great army, and labour to destroy all. For they say that all Crysten men are bounden to the counsayle of Cryst, by whiche they saye that we be forboden to defende ourselfe; and that St. Peter was reproved of our Savyour when he strake of Malchus ere, all be it that he did it in the defence of his own master, and the most innocent man that ever was. And unto this they lay, that syth the time that Christen men first fell to fyghting, it hath never encreased, but alway mynyshed and decayed. So that at this day the Turk hath estrayted us very nere, and brought it within a right narrow compass, and narrower shall do, say they, as long as we go about to defend Crystendome by the sword: which, they say, sholde be as it was in the beginning encreased, so be contynued and preserved, only by pacyence and martyrdome."-SIR THOMAS MORE'S Dialoge, ff. 145. Readiness of Belief in the Reformed People. "SURELY for the most part such as be ledde out of the ryght way, do rather fall thereto of a lewde lyghtnesse of theyr owne mynde, than for any grete thynge that moveth theym in theyr mayster that techeth theym. For we se theym as redy to byleve a purser, a glover, or a wever, that nothynge can do but scantely rede Englysshe, as well as they wolde byleve the wysest and the best lerned doctor in the realme."-SIR THOMAS MORE's Dialoge, ff. 147. Sectaries at Chelmsford. "THERE was but one church at Chelmsford, the Parishioners were so many that there were 2000 communicants, and Dr. Michelson the Parson was an able and godly man. Before this parliament was called of this numerous congregation there was not one to be named, man or woman, that boggled at the Common Prayers, or refused to receive the sacrament kneeling, the posture which the Church of England (walking in the footsteps of venerable antiquity) hath by act of Parliament enjoined all those which account it their happiness to be called her children. But since this magnified reformation was set on foot this town (as indeed most Corporations, as we 1 JEREMY TAYLOR — QUERELA CANTABRIGIENSIS. Dr. Featley's Sermon against Sectaries. "THE Scripture," said Dr. FEATLEY, preaching in those days at Lambeth, "sets forth the true visible Church of Christ upon earth, under the emblem of a great field, a great floor, a great house, a great sheet, a great draw-net, a great and large foundation, &c. The church shadowed out under these similitudes cannot be their congregation, or rather conventicles. For, as they brag and commend themselves, wanting good neighbours, in their field there are no tares, in their floor there is no chaff, in their house no vessels of dishonour, in their sheet no unclean beasts, in their net no trash, on their foundation nothing built, but gold, silver, and precious stones. They have not sate with vain persons, nor kept company with dissemblers they have hated the assembly of malignants, and have not accompanied with the ungodly: they have not, and will not christen in the same font; nor sit at the holy table, (for to kneel at the Sacrament is Idolatry) nor drink spiritually the blood of our Redeemer in the same 11 and their Precise and Holy Ones, are all met at Prince Arthurs Round Table, where every guest like the table is totus, teres atque rotundus."-Mercurius Rusticus, p. 167. "THERE are three heads of Catechism and grounds of Christianity, the Apostles Creed, the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments. These may be more truly than Gorran his Postills termed aurea fundamenta, which they go about to overthrow and cast down, and when they have done it, no place remaineth for them to build their synagogues or Maria Rotundas, but the sand in the sawpit where their Apostle Brown first taught most profoundly. The Lord's Prayer they have excluded out of their Liturgy, the Apostles' Creed out of their Confession, and the Ten Commandments by the Antinomians their disciples out of their rule of life. They are too good to say the Lord'sprayer, better taught than to rehearse the Apostles' Creed, better-lived than to hear the Decalogue read at their service, for God can see no sin in them,-nor man honesty."-Dr. FEATLEY, Mercurius Rusticus, p. 170. Testimony of our own Lives to the Spirit. "Ir the Spirit be obeyed, if it reigns in us, if we live in it, if we walk after it, if it dwells in us, then we are sure that we are the sons of God. There is no other testimony to be expected, but the doing of our duty. All things else (unless an ex tell us of it) are but fancies and deceptions, or uncertainties at the best."-JEREMY TAYLOR, Vol. 9, p. 158. www chalice with the wicked. Get ye pack-tra-regular light spring from Heaven and ing then out of our Churches with your bags and baggages, hoyse up sail for New England, or the Isle of Providence, or rather Sir Thomas More's Eutopia, where Plato's Commoner, and Oforius his Nobleman, and Castillio his Courtier, and Vegetius his Soldier, and Tully his Orator, and Aristotles Felix, and the Jews Bencohab, and the Manachees Paraclete, and the Gnosticks Illuminate Ones, and the Montanist's Spiritual Ones, and the Pelagians Perfect Ones, and the Catharests Pure Ones, Covenant and the Number 666. "It will not," says the Querela Cantabrigiensis, "be more than what upon trial will be found true, if we here mention a mystery which many (we conceive) will not a little wonder at, viz., that the Covenant for which all this persecution hath been con |