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2. When the founder of abbies laid a curse

upon those that should take away those lands, I would fain know what power they had to curse me; it is not the curses that come from the poor, or from any body, that hurt me, because they come from them, but because I do something ill against them that deserves God should curse me for it. On the other side it is not a man's blessing me that makes me blessed, he only declares me to be so; and if I do well I shall be blessed, whether any bless me or not.

3. At the time of dissolution, they were tender in taking from the abbots and priors their lands and their houses, till they surrendered them (as most of them did). Indeed the prior of St. John's, Sir Richard Weston, being a stout man, got into France, and stood out a whole year, at last submitted, and the king took in that priory also, to which the Temple belonged, and many other houses in England, They did not then cry, no abbots, no priors, as we do now, no bishops, no bishops.

4. Henry the Fifth put away the friars, aliens, and seized to himself one hundred thousand pounds a year, and therefore they were not the Protestants only that took away church lands,

5. In queen Elizabeth's time, when all the abbies were pulled down, all good works defaced, then the preachers must cry up justification by faith, not by good works.

ARTICLES.

1. THE nine and thirty Articles are much another thing in Latin (in which tongue they were made) than they are translated into English: they were made at three several convocations, and confirmed by act of parliament six or seven times after. There is a secret concerning them: of late ministers have subscribed to all of them, but by act of parliament that confirmed them, they ought only to subscribe to those articles which contain matter of faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments, as appears by the first subscriptions. But bishop Bancroft (in the convocation held in king James's days) he began it; that ministers should subscribe to three things, to the king's supremacy, to the Common Prayer, and to the Thirty-nine Articles; many of them do not contain matter of faith. Is it matter of faith how the church should be governed? whether infants should be baptized? whether we have any property in our goods?

&c.

BAPTISM.

1. It was a good way to persuade men to be christened, to tell them that they had a foulness about them, viz. original sin, that could not be washed away but by baptism.

2. The baptizing of children, with us, does only prepare a child against he comes to be a man, to understand what Christianity means. In the church of Rome it hath this effect, it frees children from hell. They say they go into limbus infantum. It succeeds circumcision, and we are sure the child understood nothing of that at eight days old; why then may not we as reasonably baptize a child at that age? In England, of late years, I ever thought the parson baptized his own fingers rather than the child.

3. In the primitive times they had godfathers to see the children brought up in the Christian religion, because many times, when the father was a Christian, the mother was not; and sometimes when the mother was a Christian, the father was not; and therefore they made choice of two or more that were Christians, to see their children brought up in that faith.

BASTARD.

1. It is said, Deut. xxiii. 2. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation.—Non ingredietur in Ecclesiam Domini, he shall not enter into the church. The meaning of the phrase is, he shall not marry a Jewish woman. But upon this grossly mistaken; a bastard at this day in the Church of Rome, without a dispensation, cannot take orders; the thing haply well enough, where it is so settled; but it is upon a mistake (the place having no reference to the church) appears plainly by what follows at the third verse, An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation. Now you know with the Jews, an Ammonite or a Moabite could never be a priest, because their priests were born so, not made.

BIBLE, SCRIPTURE.

1. Ir is a great question how we know Scripture to be Scripture, whether by the church, or by man's private spirit. Let me ask you how I know any thing? how I know this carpet to be green? First, because somebody told me.

you

it was green; that call the church in your way. Then after I have been told it is green, when I see that colour again, I know it to be green, my own eyes tell me it is green; that you call the private spirit.

2. The English translation of the Bible, is the best translation in the world, and renders the sense of the original best, taking in for the English translation, the bishops bible, as well as king James's. The translation in king James's time took an excellent way. That part of the Bible was given to him who was most excellent in such a tongue (as the Apocrypha to Andrew Downs) and then they met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c.; if they found any fault they spoke, if not, he read on.

3. There is no book so translated as the Bible for the purpose. If I translate a French book into English, I turn it into English phrase, not into French-English, il fait froid, I say it is cold, not, it makes cold; but the bible is rather translated into English words, than into English phrase, The Hebraisms are kept, and the phrase of that language is kept: as for example (he uncovered her shame),

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