God, owe their being to his bounty, and whose states are not only made but created by him. These, indeed, of all other are bound most to rejoice at their sovereign's return, being obliged thereunto by a threefold tie; loyalty to a sovereign, duty to a master, and gratitude to a benefactor: except (as some fondly hold, that a letter sealed with three seals, may be lawfully opened) any conceive that a threefold engagement may be easiest declined.

"Next we insist on his own house,' wherein this city is particularly pointed at. For if London be the Jerusalem of our David, then certainly Westminster is his Sion, where he hath his constant habitation. Here is the principal palace of his residence, the proper seat of his great council, the usual receipt of his revenues, the common courts of justice, the ancient chair of his enthroning, the royal ashes of his ancestors, the fruitful nursery of his children. You, therefore, the inhabitants of this city have most reason to rejoice.

"But, alas! What have I done that I should not? Or rather, what have I to do that I cannot, having invited many guests now to a feast, and having no meat to set before you? I have called courtiers and citizens to rejoice, and still one thing is wanting, and that a main material one, the founder of all the rest, the King is not returned in peace. Thus the sun is slipped out of our firmament, and the diamond dropped out of the ring of my text. I pretended and promised to make ant application thereof to the time, and must I now.

be like the foolish builder in the gospel, begin and cannot finish? Own house, that is the bottom of the text, but this stands empty. My Lord the King, and that is the top of the text; but he is far off, and the words which are the side-walls to join them together, He is come home in peace, these, alas! cannot be erected. In this case, there is but one remedy to help us, and that prescribed by our Saviour himself, John xxvi. 23, 'Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name he will give you.'

"Let us pray faithfully, pray fervently, pray constantly, pray continually. Let preacher and people join their prayers together, that God would be pleased to build up the walls and make up the breaches in the application, that what cannot be told, may be foretold for a truth; and that our text may be verified of Charles in prophecy, as by David in history. Excellently St. Austin adviseth, that men should not be curious to inquire how original sin came into them, but careful to seek how to get it out. By the same similitude (though reversed) let us not be curious to know what made our King (who next to God I count our original good) to leave this city, or whether offences given or taken moved him to his departure; but let us bend our brains and improve our best endeavours to bring him safely and speedily back again. How often herein have our pregnant hopes miscarried, even when they were to be delivered! Just as a man in a storm swimming through the sea to the shore, till the oars of his faint arms begin to fail him, is now come to catch land, when an unmerciful wave

beats him as far back in an instant as he can recover in an hour. Just so when our hopes of a happy peace have been ready to arrive, some envious unexpected obstacle hath started up, and hath set our hopes ten degrees backwards, as the shadow of the sun-dial of Ahaz. But let us not hereat be disheartened, but with blind Bartimeus, the more we are commanded by unhappy accidents to hold our peace, let us cry the louder in our prayers, the rather, because our King is already partly come, come in his offer to come, come in his tender to treat, come in his proffer of peace. And this very day being the beginning of the treaty, I may say he set his first step forward: God guide his feet, and speed his pace. O let us thriftily husband the least mite of hopes that it may increase, and date our day from the first peeping of the morning star, before the sun be risen. In a word, desist from sinning, persist in praying, and then it may come to pass that this our use may once be antedated, and this day's sermon sent as a harbinger beforehand to provide a lodging in your hearts for your joy against the time, that my Lord our King shall return to his own house in peace.'

*The Sermons of Innocents' Day 1642, and of March 27, 1643, were reprinted in 1654.

John Pigot, curate of St. Sepulchre's also pleaded the cause of peace in a sermon entitled, "The sharpness of the sword, or Abner's plea for Accommodation, London, 1643."

CHAPTER IX.

Dr. Fuller at Oxford and Exeter. He writes his Cause and Cure of a Wounded Conscience.'

6

GAIN Fuller appeared publicly as an advocate of measures tending to peace, in a sermon upon a fast day, in his own chapel of the Savoy, July 27. This sermon, entitled 'A sermon of Reformation,' from Heb. ix. 10, Until the time of Reformation,' was licensed by John Downam, and published this same year. In this discourse, he animadverted upon the religious in-. novators of his day, and said, "Withal we flatly deny that Queen Elizabeth left the dust behind the door, which she cast out on the dunghill, whence this uncivil expression was raked up."* Touching the school of Laud he says, upon "We freely confess that there may be some faults in our church, in matters of practise and ceremonies, and no won

*P.9.

der if there be; it would be a miracle if there were not. Besides, there be some innovations rather in the church than of the church, as not chargeable on the public account, but on private men's scores, who are old enough, let them answer for themselves." He then proceeded to shew "the true characters of such who are to be true and proper reformers." They must have a lawful calling to this work. It is plain from the approbation bestowed on the kings of Judah for their interference in ecclesiastical affairs, that to reform the Church was their proper office. Private persons should help forward by their prayers. Their office is to reform themselves and their own houses. "A good man in scripture is never called God's Church, (because that is a collective term belonging to many) but is often termed God's temple; such a temple it is lawful for every private man to reform: He must see that the foundation of faith be firm, the pillars of patience be strong, the windows of knowledge be clear, the roof of perseverance be perfected." He omits not in the qualifications of a true reformer, discretion. "Christian discretion, a grace that none ever spake against, but those that wanted it." In this sermon, as in his last, he animadverts upon the turbulent spirit of the Anabaptists. "Very facile, but very foul, is that mistake in the Vulgar translation, Luke xv. 8. Instead of Everrit domum, She swept the house, 'tis rendered Evertit domum,* She over

* It is thus in an edition of the Vulgate, at Lyon, Peter and Claud Rigaud, 1648, p. 689.