WHAT PEACE, SO LONG AS THE WHOREDOMS OF THY MOTHER JEZEBEL, AND HER WITCHCRAFTS, ARE SO MANY?

2 KINGS, IX. 22.

QUÆ PAX, CUM ADHUC FORNICATIONES JEZEBEL MATRIS TUÆ, ET VENEFICIA EJUS MULTA, VIGENT? 2 REG. IX. 22.

If not the most important, this is probably the most curious addition, which the Editor has been enabled to make to the present Edition of the Works of Bishop Hall. Other Editions have contained the English translation ; but the Original Latin (recovered, apparently, after a loss of more than two centuries) is now for the first time introduced. A copy of this very rare little volume has been recently added to the stores of the British Museum but for that now used, the Editor has to express his best acknowledgments to the Venerable Joseph Holden Pott, Vicar of Kensington, and Archdeacon of Middlesex. The only alteration made in the present reprint respects the division of the chapters and sections; for which a comparison with the English translation has enabled the Editor to provide a more complete and convenient arrangement.-H.

THE OPINION OF GEORGE CASSANDER,

A LEARNED PAPIST, AND GRAVE DIVINE:

THAT, BY TWO SEVERAL EMPERORS, FERDINAND AND MAXIMILIAN, WAS SET ON WORK, TO COMPOSE THESE QUARRELS OF THE CHURCH.

In his Consultation; pp. 56 and 57.

;

YET I cannot deny, but that, in the beginning, many, out of a godly zeal and care, were driven to a sharp and severe reproof of certain manifest abuses and that the principal cause of this calamity and distraction of the Church is to be laid upon those, which, being puffed up with a vain insolent conceit of their Ecclesiastical power, proudly and scornfully contemned and rejected them, which did rightly and modestly admonish their reformation. Wherefore my opinion is, that the Church can never hope for any firm peace, unless they make the beginning, which have given the cause of the distraction: that is, unless those, which are in the place of Ecclesiastical Government, will be content to remit something of their too much rigour, and yield somewhat to the peace of the Church; and, hearkening unto the earnest prayers and admonitions of many godly men, will set themselves to correct manifest abuses, according to the rule of Divine Scriptures, and of the Ancient Church from which they have swerved.

GEORGII CASSANDRI,

HOMINIS PONTIFICII, LONGE QUIDEM DOCTISSIMI, GRAVISSIMIQUE,

AB IMPERATORIBUS DUOBUS, FERDINANDO ET MAXIMILANO,

AD LITES ECCLESIÆ COMPONENDAS EVOCATI,

SENTENTIA.

In Consultatione suá; pag. 56 et 57.

NoN negarim tamen, multos initio, pio studio, ad acriorem reprehensionem quorundam manifestorum abusuum impulsos fuisse; et præcipuam causam hujus calamitatis et distractionis Ecclesiæ illis assignandam, qui, inani quodam fastu Ecclesiasticæ potestatis inflati, rectè et modestè admonentes superbè et fastidiosè contempserunt et repulerunt. Quare nullam Ecclesiæ firmam pacem sperandam puto, nisi ab iis initium fiat, qui distractionis causam dederunt: hoc est, ut ii, qui Ecclesiastica Gubernationi præsunt, de nimio illo rigore aliquid remittant, et Ecclesiæ paci aliquid concedant ; ac multorum priorum votis ac monitis obsequentes, manifestos abusus, ad regulam Divinarum Literarum, et Veteris Ecclesiæ, à quâ deflexerunt, corrigant.

TO THE

TRUE, SOUND, AND HOLY CHURCH of god,

WHERESOEVER WARFARING UPON EARTH.

I PRESENT unto thee, Dear and Holy Mother, this poor unworthy token of my love and loyalty; the not so pleasing, as true report of thy future broils. How much gladder should I have been, if thy Spouse had so thought good, to have been the messenger of thy peace and security! But, since the Great and Wise Moderator of All Things hath thought a palm fitter for thee than an olive, it is for thee to think of victory, not of rest. Thou shalt once triumph in heaven, and rest for all; but, in the mean time, here is nothing to be looked for but ambushes, skirmishes, tumults. And how cheerfully must thou needs both bear and overcome all oppositions, that art not more sure of the necessity of thy warfare, than of the happiness of thy success; whilst thou seest thy Glorious Husband not only the leader of this field, but a most just and merciful crowner of thy conquest! Certainly, it is as impossible for thee to miscarry, as to sit still, and not fight. Behold, all the forces of heaven and earth conspire, and rejoice to come voluntaries unto this holy war of thine, and promise thee a most happy issue. Address thyself, therefore, as thou art wont, courageously to this work of God: but, remember, first, to enquire, as thou dost, at Abel; 2 Sam. xx. 18. Spare no tears to thy desperate Sister, now thine enemy; and, calling heaven and earth to witness, upon thy knees beseech and entreat her, by her own soul, and by the dear bowels of Christ, by those precious drops of his bloody sweat, by that common price of our eternal redemption, that she would, at the last, return to herself, and that good disposition which she hath now too long abandoned; that she would forbear, any more, as I fear she hath hitherto wilfully done, to fight against God. But if she shall still persist to stop her ears against thee, and to harden herself in rebellion against her God; forget, if thou canst, who she once was; and fly mercilessly upon this daughter of Belial, that vaunts herself proudly in the glory of her munition. Go, smite, destroy, conquer, and reign, as the worthy partner of thy Husband's throne. For me, I shall, in the mean time, be as one of thy rude trumpets, whose noise shall both awaken thy courage unto this spiritual battle, and whose joyful gratulations shall, after thy rich spoils, applaud thy happy return in the day of thy victory.

J. H.

SANE SANCTÆQUE DEI ECCLESIÆ,

UBICUNQUE TERRARUM COMMILITANTI.

allaturus!

ADFERO tibi, Pia Mater, hoc qualecunque pignus amoris simul et fidei; non tam suave illud quidem, quàm fidele turbarum tuarum præconium: quantò lubentiùs, modò ita Sponso tuo visum, pacis tuæ securitatisque nuncium Verùm cùm, uti video, palmam tibi, non olivam, reponendam censuerit Magnus Rerum Arbiter, victoriam te hercle meditari oportebit, non quietem. Triumphabis olim in cœlis, et æternum requiesces; nihil istic interea præter insidias, certamina, tumultusque hosticos expectabis. Quantâ verò animi alacritate adversa quæque et perferes, et superabis, quæ Gloriosissimum Conjugem, non belli modò ducem, sed et æquissimum ßpaßεúrny, nihilo quidem incertiùs quàm tuam ipsius militiam, prænoveris. Succumbere non magis profectò poteris, quàm desidere. En tibi in commilitium istud adscitas auxiliares cœli terræque acies, quæ tibi omnes fœlicissimum sacri belli exitum pollicentur. Memineris vero inprimis interrogare, quod soles, Abelæos ; 2 Sam. xx. 18. Allachrymare, obsecra, et, Deum atque homines contestans, hostem Germanam miserè deperditam, per suam ipsius animam, per charissima Christi viscera, per pretiosissimos illos sanguinei sudoris grumulos, per commune denique æternæ redemptionis pretium, vel de geniculis obtestare, ut ad se redire velit aliquando, frugemque bonam; ut desinat, quod usque vereor ut sciens facit, Beoμaxeiv. Quòd si illa rebellem dehinc in te, in Deum, obdurârit sibi animum, aurem obturârit; obliviscere, si potes, quæ illa olim fuerit; invola nunc in turpem Belialis filiam, èπì rois ὅπλοις ἀκκίζουσαν. Vade, percute, demolire, `vince, regna, consors solii conjugalis. Ecce me tubam interea rudiorem, cujus et clangore ad prælium hoc sanctum animosiùs exsusciteris, et lætâ demum gratulatione post opima quondam spolia, victoriali illo die redux excipiaris.

J. H.

NO PEACE WITH ROME.

INTRODUCTION.

SECT. 1. The State of the now Roman Church.

THERE is no one question doth so rack the minds of men at this day, as this of the Church.

The infancy of the Church was sore and long vexed with heresies of a higher nature, concerning God, concerning Christ, which still struck at the head: but her vigorous and hoary age is exercised with a slighter quarrel, concerning ourselves; which yet raiseth up the greater broils everywhere, by how much every man naturally loves himself more than God.

Not to meddle with any foreign questions of this nature, too many seem unto me to misconceive the state of our Church, and the Romish, as if they had been always two: as if, from their first foundations, they had been sensibly severed in time and place; like to Babylon and Jerusalem, or those two famous cities opposed in St. Austin's learned discourse.

Hence are those idle demands of some smattering questionists: Where our Church hath thus long hid itself: What year and day it came to light: In which age that other Church lost istelf: Why we have withdrawn ourselves no further from them: What is become of our forefathers: Which was the religion of the former world?

From hence have those sharp and rigorous censures passed on both sides; whether of novelty, or of the desperate condition of those souls which have departed out of our own way.

Alas! what monsters both of opinions and questions have risen hence; and have vexed, not their own authors only, (for the Delphic Oracle said well, "It is fit a man should have as he doth:") but, together with them, the whole Church of God! How many silly souls have splitted upon this rock; which had never needed any votive monument of their wreck, if they had but learned to hold no other difference betwixt us and Rome, than must needs be granted, betwixt a church miserably corrupted, and happily purged; betwixt a sickly, languished, and dying Church, and one that is healthful, strong, and flourishing!