I hear your answer, from that your great champion, which, not many days since, with one blow, hath driven out three, not slight, wedges: That not civil obedience is stood upon; but positive doctrine: That you are ready to swear for the King's safety; not against the Pope's authority: King James must live and reign, but Paulus Quintus must rule and be obeyed; and better were it for you to die, than your sworn allegiance should prejudice the See Apostolic.

An elusion, fit for children! What is to dally, if not this? As if he said, The King shall live, unless the Pope will not: That he shall not be discrowned, deposed, massacred by your hands; unless your Holy Father should command.

But (I ask, as who should not?) What if he do command? What if your Saulus V. shall breathe out, like his predecessors, not threatenings, but strong bellowings of excommunications, of deposition of God's anointed? What if he shall command, after that French fashion, the throats of all heretics to bleed, in a night?

Pardon you, in this. Now, it is grown a point of doctrinal divinity, to determine how far the power of Peter's successor may extend. You may neither swear nor say your hands shall not be steeped, in the blood of your true sovereign: and to die rather than swear it, is martyrdom.

But, what if heaven fall, say you? His Holiness, as you hope, will take none such courses. Woe were us, if our safety depended upon your hopes, or his mercies. Blessed be that God, which, malgrè, hath made and kept us happy; and hath lifted us above our enemies. But what hope is there, that he, who chargeth subjects not to swear allegiance, will never discharge them from allegiance? that those, who clamorously and shamelessly complain to the world of our cruelty, will forbear to solicit others' cruelty to us? Your hopes, to you; to us, our securities.

Is this the religion you father upon those Christian Patriarchs of the primitive age? O blessed Ireney, Clemens, Cyprian, Basil, Chrysostom, Augustin, Jerome, and thou, the severest exactor of just censures, holy Ambrose! how would you have spit at such a rebellious assertion!

What speak I of Fathers; whose very mention, in such a cause, were injury, were impiety? Which of those cursed heresies of ancient times, for to them I hold it fitter to appeal, have ever been so desperately shameless, as to breed, to maintain a conceit so palpably unnatural? unless, perhaps, those old Antitactæ may, upon general terms, be compelled to patronize it; while they held it piety, to break the laws of their Maker.

a "The Judgment of a Catholic Englishman banished, &c. concerning the Apology of the oath of Allegiance, entitled Triplici nodo, &c."

For you, if you profess not to love willing errors, by this suspect and judge the rest. You see this defended, with equal resolution, and with no less cheerful expence of blood. In the body, where you see one monstrous deformity, you cannot affect: if you can do so in your religion, yet how dare you? since the greater half of it stands on no other ground. Only, God make you wise and honest, you shall shake hands with this faction of Popery; and I with you, to give you a cheerful welcome into the bosom of the Church.

EPISTLE V.

TO MY BROTHER MR. SA. HALL.

A Discourse of the great Charge of the Ministerial Function; together with particular Directions for due Preparation thereunto, and Carriage therein.

It is a great and holy purpose, Dear Brother, that you have entertained, of serving God in his Church: for, what higher, or more worthy employmen tcan there be than to do these divine duties, to such a Master, and such a Mother?

Wherein yet I should little rejoice, if any necessity had cast you upon this refuge: for I hate and grieve to think, that any desperate mind should make divinity but a shift; and dishonour this mistress, by being forsaken of the world. This hath been the drift of your education: to this you were born, and dedicated in a direct course.

I do willingly encourage you; but not without many cautions. Enter not into so great a service, without much foresight: when your hand is at the plough, it is too late to look back. Bethink yourself seriously of the weight of this charge: and let your holy desire be allayed with some trembling.

It is a foolish rashness of young heads, when they are in God's chair, to wonder how they came thither; and to forget the awfulness of that place, in the confidence of their own strength; which is ever so much less, as it is more esteemed.

I commend not the wayward excuses of Moses; nor the peremptory unwillingness of Ammonius and friar Thomas, who maimed themselves, that they might be wilfully uncapable.

Betwixt both these, there is an humble modesty, and religious fearfulness; easily to be noted in those, whom the Church honours with the name of her Fathers; worthy your imitation: wherein yet you shall need no precedents, if you well consider what worth of parts, what strictness of carriage, what weight of Offices, God expects in this vocation.

Know, first, that, in this place, there will be more holiness

required of you, than in the ordinary station of a Christian: for, whereas before you were but as a common line, now God set you for a copy of sanctification unto others; wherein every fault is both notable and dangerous.

Here is looked for, a settled acquaintance with God; and experience both of the proceedings of grace, and of the offers and repulses of temptations; which in vain we shall hope to manage in other hearts, if we have not found in our own. To speak by aim or rote, of repentance, of contrition, of the degrees of regeneration and faith, is both harsh, and seldom when not unprofitable. We trust those physicians best, which have tried the virtue of their drugs; esteeming not of those, which have only borrowed of their books.

Here will be expected a free and absolute government of affections that you can so steer your own vessel, as not to be transported with fury; with self-love; with immoderation of pleasures, of cares, of desires; with excess of passions: in all which, so must you demean yourself, as one, that thinks he is no man of the world, but of God; as one, too good, by his double calling, for that, which is either the felicity or impotency of beasts.

Here must be continual and inward exercise of mortification, and severe Christianity: whereby the heart is held in due awe; and the weak flames of the spirit quickened, the ashes of our dulness blown off: a practice necessary in him, whose devotion must set many hearts on fire.

Here must be wisdom, and inoffensiveness of carriage; as of one, that goes ever under monitors, and that knows other men's indifferences are his evils. No man hath such need to keep a strict mean. Setting aside contempt, even in observation; behold, we are made a gazing stock to the world, to angels, to men. The very sail of your estate must be moderated: which if it bear too high, as seldom, it incurs the censure of profusion and epicurism; if too low, of a base and unbeseeming earthliness. Your hand may not be too close for others' need; nor too open for your own. Your conversation may not be rough and sullen, nor over familiar and fawning; whereof the one breeds a conceit of pride and strangeness; the other, contempt: not loosely merry; not cynically unsociable: not contentious, in small injuries; in great, not hurtfully patient to the Church. Your attire (for whither do not censures reach ?) not youthfully wanton; not, in these years, affectedly ancient: but grave and comely, like the mind, like the behaviour of the wearer. Your gesture like your habit; neither savouring of giddy lightness, nor overly insolence, nor wantonness, nor dull neglect of yourself: but such, as may beseem a mortified mind, full of worthy spirits. Your speech like your gesture; not scurrilous, not detracting, not idle, not boasting, not rotten,

not peremptory: but honest, mild, fruitful, savoury; and such as may both argue and work grace. Your deliberations mature; your resolutions well grounded; your devices sage and holy.

Neither will it serve you to be thus good alone: but, if God shall give you the honour of this estate, the world will look you should be the grave guide of a well-ordered family. For this is proper to us, that the vices of our charge reflect upon us; the sins of others are our reproach. If another man's children miscarry, the parent is pitied; if a minister's, censured: yea, not our servant is faulty without our blemish. In all these occasions, a misery incident to us alone, our grief is our shame.

To descend nearer unto the sacred affairs of this heavenly trade in a minister, God's Church is accounted, both his house to dwell in, and his field to work in: wherein, upon the penalty of a curse, he faithfully, wisely, diligently, devoutly deals with God, for his people; with his people, for and from God. Whether he instruct, he must do it with evidence of the Spirit: or whether he reprove, with courage and zeal: or whether he exhort, with meekness; and yet with power: or whether he confute, with demonstration of truth; not with rage and personal maliciousness; not with a wilful heat of contradiction: or whether he admonish, with long-suffering and love; without prejudice and partiality: in a word, all these he so doth, as he, that desires nothing, but to honour God and save men. His wisdom must discern betwixt his sheep and wolves; in his sheep, betwixt the wholesome and unsound; in the unsound, betwixt the weak and tainted; in the tainted, betwixt the natures, qualities, degrees of the disease, and infection and to all these he must know to administer a word in season. He hath antidotes, for all temptations; counsels, for all doubts; evictions, for all errors; for all languishings, encouragements. No occasion from any altered estate of the soul may find him unfurnished. He must ascend to God's altar, with much awe, with sincere and cheerful devotion: so taking, celebrating, distributing his Saviour, as thinking himself at table in heaven, with the blessed angels. In the mean time, as he wants not a thankful regard to the Master of the Feast; so, not care of the guests. The greatness of an offender may not make him sacrilegiously partial, nor the obscurity negligent.

b Wherein let me advise you, to walk ever in the beaten road of the Church; not to run out into singular paradoxes. And, if you meet, at any time, with private conceits, that seem more probable, suspect them and yourself: and, if they can win you to assent, yet smother them in your breast; and do not dare to vent them out, either by your hand or tongue, to trouble the common peace. It is a miserable praise, to be a witty disturber.

I have said little of any of our duties; and, of some, nothing: yet enough, I think, to make you, if not timorous, careful. Neither would I have you hereupon, to hide yourself from this calling; but, to prepare yourself for it. These times call for them, that are faithful: and, if they may spare some learning, conscience they cannot. Go on happily: it argues a mind Christianly noble, to be encouraged with the need of his labours; with the difficulties.

EPISTLE VI.'

TO MRS. A. P.

A Discourse of the Signs and Proofs of a true Faith. THERE is no comfort, in a secret felicity. To be happy, and not know it, is little above miserable.

Such is your state: only herein better than the common case of the most; that the well of life lies open before you, but your eyes, like Hagar's, are not open to see it; while they have neither water nor eyes. We do not much more want that, which we have not; than that, which we do not know we have.

Let me sell you some of that spiritual eye-salve, which the Spirit commends to his Laodiceans; that you may clearly see, how well you are. There is nothing, but those scales, betwixt you and happiness.

Think not much, that I espy in you, what yourself sees not: too much nearness ofttimes hindereth sight; and if, for the spots of our own faces we trust others' eyes, why not for our perfections?

You are in heaven; and know it not: He, that believes, is already passed from death to life: you believe, while you complain of unbelief. If you complained not, I should misdoubt you more, than you do yourself, because you complain. Secure and insolent presumption hath killed many: that breathes nothing but confidence and safety; and abandons all doubts, and condemns them. That man never believed, that never doubted. This liquor of faith is never pure, in these vessels of clay, without these lees of distrust.

What then? Think not, that I encourage you to doubt more; but persuade you, not to be discouraged with doubting. All uncertainty is comfortless: those, that teach men to conjecture, and forbid to resolve, read lectures of misery. Those doubts are but to make way for assurance; as the oft shaking of the tree, fastens it more at the root.

You are sure of God; but you are afraid of yourself. The