153 APPENDIX. I. ARCHBISHOP SANDYS' Final Opinion on the question of the continuance of the CEREMONIES in the CHURCH OF ENGLAND, the chief and almost the only ground of exception in the minds of the more moderate of the Puritan Ministers. The following passage is copied from the Preamble to the Will of the Archbishop, which was made the year before his death, 1588 : : "Thirdly, because I have lived an old man in the ministry of Christ, a faithful dispenser of the mysteries of God, and, to my power, an earnest labourer in the vineyard of the Lord, I testify before God and his angels, and men of this world, I rest resolute, and yield up my spirit in that doctrine, which I have privately studied, and publicly preached, and which is this day maintained in the Church of England; both taking the same to be the whole counsel of God, the word and bread of eternal life, the fountain of living water, the power of God unto salvation to all them that do believe, and beseeching the Lord besides to turn us unto him that we might be turned, lest if we repent not, the candlestick be moved out of its place, and the gospel to a nation that shall bring forth the fruits thereof. And further protest, in an upright conscience of mine own, and in the knowledge of His Majesty, before whom I stand, that in the preaching of the truth of Christ, I have not laboured to please men, but studied to serve my Master who sent me; not to flatter either prince or people, but by the law, to tell all sorts of their sins; by the spirit, to rebuke the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; by the gospel, to testify of that faith which is in Jesus Christ and him crucified. "Fourthly, concerning rites and ceremonies by political constitutions authorised amongst us. As I am and have been persuaded that such as are set down by public authority in this Church of England, are no way either ungodly or unlawful, but may with good conscience, for order and obedience sake, be used of a good Christian (for the private baptism to be ministered by women, I take neither to be prescribed nor permitted) [query prohibited ?], so have I ever been and presently am persuaded, that some of them be not so expedient for the Church now; but in the Church reformed and in all this time of the gospel, wherein the seed of the scripture hath so long been sown, they may better be disused by little and little, than more and more urged. Howbeit [though], I do easily acknowledge our Ecclesiastical Polity, in some points, may be bettered; so I do utterly mislike, even in my conscience, all such rude and indigested platforms, as have been more lately and boldly, than either learnedly or wisely preferred; tending not to the reformation but to the destruction of the Church of England. The particulars of both sorts reserved to the discretion of the godly, which of the latter I only say thus that the state of a small private church, and the form of a large Christian kingdom, neither would long like, not at all brook, one and the same Ecclesiastical government." : |
