thing I like, and ask you that stand by and are no chirurgeon, what you think of it. You like it too; you and I are judges of the plaster, and we bid them prepare it, and there is an end. Thus it is in religion; the Protestants say they will be judged by the scriptures, the Papists say so too, but that cannot speak. A judge is no judge except he can both speak and command execution; but the truth is, they never intend to agree. No doubt the Pope, where he is supreme, is to be judge; if he say we in England ought to be subject to him, then he must draw his sword and make it good.

VIII. By the law was the manual received: into the church before the Reformation; not by the civil law, that had nothing to do in it; nor by the canon law, for that manual that was here was not in France, nor in Spain; but by custom, which is the common law of Eng. land; and custom is but the elder brother to a Parliament; and so it will fall out to be nothing that the Papists say. Ours is a parliamentary religion, by reason the service book was established by act of Parliament, and never any service book was so before: that will be nothing that the Pope sent the manual, it was ours because the State received it: the State still makes the religion, and receives into it what will best agree with it. Why are the Venetians Roman Catholics? Because the State likes the religion; all the world knows

they

they care not three pence for the Pope. The Council of Trent is not at this day admitted in France.

IX. Papist. Where was your religion be fore Luther, an hundred years ago?

Protestant. Where was America an hundred or sixscore years ago? Our religion was where the rest of the Christian church was.

Papist. Our religion continued ever since the apostles, and therefore it is better.

Protestant. So did ours that there was an interruption of it, will fall out to be nothing, no more than if another earl should tell me of the earl of Kent; saying, he is a better earl than he, because there was one or two of the family of Kent did not take the title upon them, yet all that while they were really earls; and afterwards a great prince declared them to be earls of Kent, as he that made the other family an earl.

X. Disputes about religion will never be ended, because there wants a measure by which the business would be decided: the Puritan would be judged by the word of God; if he would speak clearly he means himself, but he is ashamed to say so; and he would have me believe him before a whole church that has read the word of God as well as he. One says one thing and another another; and there is, I say, no measure to end the controversy, It is just as if two men were at bowls, and both judged by the eye;

one

one says it is his cast, the other says it is my cast, and having no measure, the difference is external. Ben Johnson satyrically expressed the vain disputes of divines by Inigo Lanthorne disputing with his puppet in a Bartholomew fair: "It is so; it is not so; it is "so; it is not so:" crying thus one to ano❤. ther a quarter of an hour together.

XI. In matters of religion to be ruled by one that writes against his adversary, and throws all the dirt he can in his face, is, as if, in point of good manners, a man should be governed by one whom he sees at cuffs with another, and thereupon thinks himself bound to give the next man he meets a box on the.

car.

XII. It is to no purpose to labour to reconcile religions, when the interest of princes. will not suffer it: it is well if they could be. reconciled so far that they should not cut one another's throats.

XIII. There is all the reason in the world divines should not be suffered to go a hair be-yond their bounds, for fear of breeding confu sion, since there now be so many religions> on foot. The matter was not so narrowly, to be looked after when there was but one religion in Christendom; the rest would cry, him down for an Heretic, and there was nobody to side with him.

XIV. We look after religion as the but

cher

cher did after his knife, when he had it in : his mouth.

XV. Religion is made a juggler's paper, now it is a horse, now it is a lantern, now it is a boar, now it is a man. To serve ends, religion is turned into all shapes.

XVI. Pretending religion and the law of God, is to set all things loose. When a man has no mind to do something he ought to do by his contract with man, then he gets a text, and interprets it as he pleases, and so thinks to get loose.

XVII. Some men's pretending religion, is like the roaring boys way of challenges, "Their reputation is dear, it does not stand "with the honour of a gentleman;" when God knows, they have neither honour nor reputation about them.

XVIII. They talk much of settling religion religion is well enough settled already, if we would let it alone; methinks we might look after, &c.

XIX. If men would say they took up -arms for any thing but religion, they might be beaten out of it by reason; out of that they never can, for they will not believe you whatever you say.

XX. The very arcanum of pretending religion in all wars is, that something may be found out in which all men may have interest. In this the groom has as much interest as the lord. Were it for land, one has a thousand

acres,

acres, and the other but one; he would not venture so far as he that has a thousand. Bat religion is equal to both had all men land alike, by a lex agraria, then all men would say they fought for land.

SABBATH.

I. WHY should I think all the fourth commandment belongs to me, when all the fifth does not? What land will the Lord give me for honouring my father? It was spoken to the Jews with reference to the land of Canaan; but the meaning is, if I honour my parents, God will also bless me. We read the commandments in the church service, as we do David's psalms; not that all there concerns us, but a great deal of them does.

SACRAMENT.

I. CHRIST suffered Judas to take the com-munion. Those ministers that keep their parishioners from it because they will not do as they will have them, revenge. rather than reform.

. II. No man can tell whether I am fit to receive the sacrament; for though I were fit. the day before, when he examined me, at least appeared so to him, yet how can he tell what sin I have committed that night, or the next

morn