ordered to yield tribute unto him; to supply his wants, to gratify his desires; with profit and pleasure to exercise his faculties; to content, as it were, even his humour and curiosity. All things about us do minister (or at least may do so, if we improve the natural instruments, and the opportunities afforded us) to our preservation, ease, or delight. The hidden bowels of the earth yield us treasures of metals and minerals, quarries of stone and coal, so necessary, so serviceable to divers good uses, that we could not commodiously be without them; the vilest and most common stones we tread on (even in that we tread on them) are useful, and serve to many good purposes beside: the surface of the earth how is it bespread all over, as a table well furnished, with variety of delicate fruits, herbs, and grains to nourish our bodies, to please our tastes, to cheer our spirits, to cure our diseases! how many fragrant and beautiful flowers offer themselves for the comfort of our smell and the delight of our sight! Neither can our ears complain, since every wood breeds a quire of natural musicians, ready to entertain them with easy and unaffected harmony. The woods, I say, which also adorned with stately trees afford us a pleasant view and a refreshing shade, shelter from weather and sun, fuel for our fires, materials for our houses and our shipping; with divers other needful utensils. Even the barren mountains send us down fresh streams of water, so necessary to the support of our lives, so profitable for the fructification of our grounds, so commodious for conveyance of our wares and maintaining intercourse among us. Yea the wide seas are not (altogether unprofitable) wastes; but freely yield us, without our tillage, many rich harvests, transmitting our commerce and traffic, furnishing our tables with stores of dainty fish, supplying the bottles of heaven with waters to refresh the earth, being inexhaustible cisterns, from whence our rivers and fountains are derived; the very rude and boisterous winds themselves fulfil God's word (which once commanded all things to be good, and approved them to be so) by yielding manifold services to us; in brushing and cleansing the air for our health, in driving forward our ships (which without their friendly help could not stir) in gathering together, in scattering, in spreading abroad the clouds; the clouds, those paths of God which drop fatness upon our fields and pastures. As for our living subjects, all the inferior sorts of animals, it is hardly possible to reckon the manifold benefits we receive from them; how many ways they supply our

needs with pleasant food and convenient clothing, how they ease our labour, how they promote even our recreation and sport. Thus have all things upon this earth (as is fit and seemly they should have) by the wise and gracious disposal of the great Creator, a reference to the benefit of its noblest inhabitant, most worthy and most able to use them: many of them have an immediate reference to man (as necessary to his being, or conducive to his well-being; being fitted thereto, to his hand, without his care, skill, or labour), others a reference to him, more mediate indeed, yet as reasonable to suppose; I mean such things, whose usefulness doth in part depend upon the exercise of our reason, and the instruments subservient thereto : for what is useful by the help of reason, doth as plainly refer to the benefit of a thing naturally endowed with that faculty, as what is agreeable to sense refers to a thing merely sensitive: we may therefore, for instance, as reasonably suppose, that iron was designed for our use, though first we be put to dig for it, then must employ many arts, and much pains before it become fit for our use; as that the stones were therefore made, which be open to our view; and which without any preparation we easily apply to the pavement of our streets, or the raising of our fences: also, the grain we sow in our grounds, or the trees which we plant in our orchards, we have reason to conceive as well provided for us, as those plants which grow wildly and spontaneously; for that sufficient means are bestowed on us of compassing such ends, and rendering those things useful to us (a reason able to contrive what is necessary in order thereto, and a hand ready to execute), it being also reasonable, that something should be left for the improvement of our reason, and employment of our industry, lest our noblest powers should languish and decay by sloth, or want of fit exercise.

(From Sermon On the Being of God proved from the Frame of the World.)

THE SILENCE OF HISTORY AND TRADITION ON

THE POPE'S SUPREMACY

BUT however, seeing the Scripture is so strangely reserved, how cometh it to pass that tradition is also so defective, and staunch in so grand a case? We have in divers of the Fathers

(particularly in Tertullian, in St. Basil, in St. Jerome) catalogues of traditional doctrines and observances, which they recite to assert tradition in some cases supplemental to Scripture; on which their purpose did require, that they should set down those of principal moment; and they are so punctual, as to insert many of small consideration: how then came they to neglect this, concerning the papal authority over the whole church, which had been most pertinent to their design, and in consequence did vastly surpass all the rest which they do

name?

The designation of the Roman bishop by succession to obtain so high a degree in the church, being above all others a most remarkable and noble piece of history, which it had been a horrible fault in an ecclesiastical history to slip over, without careful reporting and reflecting upon it; yet Eusebius, that most diligent compiler of all passages relating to the original constitution of the church, and to all transactions therein, hath not one word about it! who yet studiously doth report the successions of the Roman bishops, and all the notable occurrences he knew concerning them, with favourable advantage.

Whereas this doctrine is pretended to be a point of faith, of vast consequence to the subsistence of the church and to the salvation of men, it is somewhat strange that it should not be inserted into any one ancient summary of things to be believed (of which summaries divers remain, some composed by public consent, others by persons of eminence in the church) nor by fair and forcible consequence should be deducible from any article in them; especially considering that such summaries were framed upon occasion of heresies springing up which disregarded the pope's authority, and which by asserting it were plainly confuted. We are therefore beholden to Pope Innocent III., and his Lateran synod for first synodically defining this point, together with other points no less new and unheard of before. The Creed of Pope Pius IV. formed the other day, is the first as I take it, which did contain this article of faith.

It is much that this point of faith should not be delivered in any of those ancient expositions of the Creed (made by St. Austin, Ruffin, etc.) which enlarge it to necessary points of doctrine, connected with the articles therein, especially with that of the Catholic Church, to which the pope's authority hath so close a connexion; that it should not be touched in the

catechetical discourses of Cyril, Ambrose, etc.; that in the systems of divinity composed by St. Austin, Lactantius, etc., it should not be treated on: the world is now changed; for the Catechism of Trent doth not overlook so material a point; and it would pass for a lame body of theology which should omit to treat on this subject.

It is more wonderful, that this point should never be defined, in downright and full terms, by any ancient synod; it being so notoriously in those old times opposed by divers who dissented in opinion, and discorded in practice from the pope; it being also a point of that consequence, that such a solemn declaration of it would have much conduced to the ruin of all particular errors and schisms, which were maintained then in opposition to the church.

Indeed had this point been allowed by the main body of orthodox bishops, the pope could not have been so drowsy or stupid as not to have solicited for such a definition thereof; nor would the bishops have been backward in compliance thereto; it being, in our adversaries' conceit, so compendious and effectual a way of suppressing all heresies, schisms, and disorders (although indeed later experience hath showed it no less available to stifle truth, justice, and piety); the popes after Luther were better advised, and so were the bishops adhering to his opinions.

Whereas also it is most apparent that many persons disclaimed this authority, not regarding either the doctrines or decrees of the popes; it is wonderful that such men should not be reckoned in the large catalogues of heretics, wherein errors of less obvious consideration, and of far less importance, did place men; if Epiphanius, Theodoret, Leontius, etc., were so negligent or unconcerned, yet St. Austin, Philastrius,-western men, should not have overlooked this sort of desperate heretics: Aerius, for questioning the dignity of bishops, is set among the heretics; but who got that name for disavowing the pope's supremacy, among the many who did it (it is but lately, that such as we have been thrust in among heretics)?

Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to raise offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as this, which setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; whereas no novelty could be more surprising or startling, than the erection of an universal empire over the

consciences and religious practices of men; whereas also this doctrine could not but be very conspicuous and glaring in ordinary practice; it is prodigious, that all pagans should not loudly exclaim against it.

It is strange that pagan historians (such as Marcellinus, who often speaketh of popes, and blameth them for their luxurious way of living and pompous garb; as Zozimus, who bore a great spite at Christianity; as all the writers of the imperial history before Constantine) should not report it, as a very strange pretence newly started up.

It is wonderful that the eager adversaries of our religion (such as Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, Julian himself) should not particularly level their discourse against it, as a most scandalous position and dangerous pretence, threatening the government of the empire.

It is admirable that the emperors themselves, inflamed with emulation and suspicion of such an authority (the which hath been so terrible even to Christian princes), should not in their edicts expressly decry and impugn it; that indeed every one of them should not with extremest violence implacably strive to extirpate it.

(From A Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy.)