EPISCOPAL ADMONITION, BY THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, DR. JOSEPH HALL, LATE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER, April 28, 1628. LONDON, PRINTED FOR C. G. 1681. GENTLEMEN,-For God's sake be wise in your well-meant zeal. Why do you argue away precious time, that can never be revoked or repaired? Woe is me! While we dispute, our friends perish, and we must follow them! Where are we, if we break? And, I tremble to think, we cannot but break, if we hold so stiff. Our liberties and properties are sufficiently declared to be sure and legal: our remedies are clear and irrefragable. What do we fear? Every subject sees the way now chalked out for future justice; and who dares henceforth tread besides it? Certainly, while parliaments live, we need not misdoubt the violations of our freedoms and rights. May we be but where the Law found us, we shall sufficiently enjoy ourselves and ours. It is no reason' to search for more. Oh, let us not, whilst we over-rigidly plead for an higher strain of safety, put ourselves into a necessity of ruin, and utter despair of redress! Let us not, in the suspicions of evils that may be, cast ourselves into a present confusion! If you love yourselves and your Country, remit something of your own terms: and since the substance is yielded by your noble patriots, stand not too rigorously upon points of circumstance. Fear not to trust a good King, who, after the strict laws made, must be trusted with the execution. Think that your country, nay, and Christendom, lies on the mercy of your present resolutions. Relent, or farewell welfare! From him, whose faithful heart bleeds in a rowed sacrifice for his King and Country, EXETER. Now first printed from a broad-side preserved in the British Museum : though neither the matter, nor the style, nor even the signature, would seem to warrant the suggestion, that the author was Bishop Hall.-H. VOL. VIII. A SHORT ANSWER TO THOSE NINE ARGUMENTS, WHICH ARE BROUGHT AGAINST THE BISHOPS SITTING IN PARLIAMENT. THOSE reasons had need to be strong, and the inconveniences heinous, that should take away an ancient and hereditary right, established by law. These are not such. 1. To trade in secular affairs, and to be taken up with them, is indeed a great and just hindrance to the exercise of our ministerial function: but, to meet once in three years in a Parliament, for some few weeks, at the same time when we are bound to attend Convocation business, is no sensible impediment to our holy calling. 2. We do, indeed, promise and profess, when we enter into Holy Orders, that we will give ourselves, so much as in us lies, wholly to this vocation: will it therefore follow, that we may not, upon any occasion, lend ourselves to the care of the public, when we are thereunto called? And if, this notwithstanding, we may, yea must take moderate care of our household affairs, and the provision for our family; why not as well of the Commonwealth? 3. For ancient Canons of Councils, will they be content to be bound by them, who urge them upon us? or, will they admit some and reject others? or, will they admit them, where they are contrary to our own laws? Now our Clarendon Constit. have, expressly, debent interesse omnibus judiciis. The Canons, therefore, must yield to them; not they to the Canons. 4. Twenty-four Bishops have dependance upon two Archbishops: When was it otherwise? Is it not so in, all subordinations of government? If this be a just inconvenience, let all be levelled to an equality, and that shall end in a certain confusion. But they swear to them canonical obedience :True; but it is only in omnibus licitis et honestis mandatis. The supposition implied must needs savour of uncharitableness; that the Metropolitans will be still apt to require unlaw 414 417 Section x. Of the Woeful Estate of the Souls of the Damned MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGY. II. SOLOMON'S DIVINE ARTS, OF-1. ETHICS, 2. POLITICS, 3. ECONOMICS: THAT IS, THE GOVERNMENT OF 1. Behaviour, 2. COMMONWEALTH, 3. FAMILY. DRAWN INTO METHOD OUT OF HIS PROVERBS AND ECCLESIASTES The Master, and Servant III. EPISCOPAL ADMONITION, SENT IN A LETTER TO THE . IV. ANSWER TO NINE ARGUMENTS AGAINST BI- V. A SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT. VII. A SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT, CONCERNING THE Power of VIII. A LETTER SENT TO AN HONOURABLE GENTLE- MAN IN WAY OF SATISFACTION, CONCERNING SOME SLAN- IX. AN APOLOGETICAL LETTER TO A PERSON OF THOUSAND YEARS' REIGN OF THE SAINTS WITH CHRIST UPON EARTH. LAYING FORTH THE WEAK GROUNDS AND STRANGE Page . 501 166 A Preface to his Relation of the Russian Affairs 7. TO STANISLAUS BUCKINSKI, late Secretary to Demetrius, Emperor 1. TO MR. SMITH, and MR. ROв., Ringleaders of the late Separation Setting forth their injury done to the Church, the injustice of their cause, and fearfulness of their offence. Censuring and 3. TO MR. SAMUEL BURTON, Archdeacon of Gloucester. A Discourse of the Trial and Choice of the True Religion 4. To MR. EDMUND SLEIGH. A Discourse of the Hardness of Christianity; and the abun- 5. To MR. W. L. Expostulating the Cause of his Unsettledness in Religion, 7. To MR. T. L. Concerning the matter of Divorce, in the case of apparent Adultery; advising the innocent party, of the fittest course |