except in time of sickness; when once he became a thing cooped up, all his greatness was spoiled. Nay, the king himself used to eat in the hall, and his lords sat with him, and then he understood men.

HELL.

1. THERE are two texts for Christ's descending into hell: the one Psalm xvi., the other Acts ii., where the Bible that was in use when the Thirty-nine Articles were made has it hell. But the Bible that was in queen Elizabeth's time, when the articles were confirmed, reads it grave; and so it continued till the New Translation in king James's time, and then it is hell again. But by this we may gather the church of England declined, as much as they could, the descent, otherwise they never would have altered the Bible.

2. He descended into hell, this may be the interpretation of it. He may be dead and buried, then his soul ascended into heaven. Aftewards he descended again into hell, that is, into the grave, to fetch his body, and to rise again. The ground of this interpretation is taken from the Platonic learning, who held a metempsychosis; and when a soul did de

scend from heaven to take another body, they called it Κατὰ βάσιν εις αδὴν, taking άδης, for the lower world, the state of mortality. Now the first Christians many of them were Platonic philosophers, and no question spake such language as then was understood amongst them. To understand by hell the grave is no tautology, because the creed first tells what Christ suffered, he was crucified, dead, and buried; then it tells us what he did, he descended into hell, the third day he rose again, he ascended, &c.

HOLY DAYS.

THEY say the church imposes holy days; there is no such thing, though the number of holy days is set down in some of our Common Prayer Books. Yet that has relation to an act of parliament, which forbids the keeping of any holy days in time of popery; but those that are kept, are kept by the custom of the country, and I hope you will not say the church imposes that.

HUMILITY.

1. HUMILITY is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear.

The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

2. There is humilitas quædam in vitio. If a man does not take notice of that excellency and perfection that is in himself, how can he be thankful to God, who is the author of all excellency and perfection? Nay, if a man hath too mean an opinion of himself, it will render him unserviceable both to God and

man.

3. Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity. In gluttons there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drinking; it is not the eating, nor it is not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.

IDOLATRY.

IDOLATRY is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another. Put case, I bow to the altar, why am I guilty of idolatry, because a stander by thinks so? I am sure I do not believe the altar to be God, and the God I worship may be bowed to in all places, and at all times.

JEWS.

1. GOD at the first gave laws to all mankind, but afterwards he gave peculiar laws to the Jews, which they were only to observe. Just as we have the common law for all England, and yet you have some corporations, that, besides that, have peculiar laws and privileges to themselves.

2. Talk what you will of the Jews, that they are cursed, they thrive wherever they come; they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money; none of them beg, they keep together, and for their being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much.

INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE.

It is all one to me if I am told of Christ, or some mystery of Christianity, if I am not capable of understanding, as if I am not told at all, my ignorance is as invincible; and therefore it is vain to call their ignorance only invincible, who never were told of Christ. The trick of it is to advance the priest, whilst the church of Rome says a man must be told of Christ, by one thus and thus ordained.

IMAGES.

1. THE Papists taking away the second, is not haply so horrid a thing, nor so unreasonable amongst Christians as we make it. For the Jews could make no figure of God, but they must commit idolatry, because he had taken no shape; but since the assumption of our flesh, we know what shape to picture God in. Nor do I know why we may not make his image, provided we be sure what it is: as we say St. Luke took the picture of the Virgin Mary, and St. Veronica of our Saviour. Otherwise it would be no honour to the king to make a picture, and call it the king's picture, when it is nothing like him.

2. Though the learned Papists pray not to images, yet it is to be feared the ignorant do; as appears by that story of St. Nicholas in Spain. A countryman used to offer daily to St. Nicholas's image; at length by mischance the image was broken, and a new one made of his own plum-tree; after that the man forbore. Being complained of to his ordinary, he answered, it is true, he used to offer to the old image, but to the new he could not find in his heart, because he knew it was a piece of his own plum-tree. You see what opinion