inserted? Besides the late legerdemain of the papists, that which Sulpitius writes concerning Origen's books gives us cause vehemently to suspect there hath been packing of old. In the third chapter of his 1st Dialogue we may read what wrangling the bishops and monks had about the reading or not reading of Origen; some objecting that he was corrupted by heretics; others. answering that all such books had been so dealt with. How then shall I trust these times to lead me, that testify so ill of leading themselves? Certainly of their defects their own witness may be best received; but of the rectitude and sincerity of their life and doctrine, to judge rightly, we must judge by that which was to be their rule.

But it will be objected, that this was an unsettled state of the church, wanting the temporal magistrate to suppress the licence of false brethren, and the extravagancy of still new opinions; a time not imitable for Church government, where the temporal and spiritual power did not close in one belief, as under Constantine. I am not of opinion to think the Church a vine in this respect, because, as they take it, she cannot subsist without clasping about the elm of worldly strength and felicity, as if the heavenly city could not support itself without the props and buttresses of secular authority. They extol Constantine because he extolled them; as our homebred monks in their histories blanch the kings their benefactors, and brand those that went about to be their correctors. If he had curbed the growing pride, avarice, and luxury of the clergy, then every page of his story should have swelled with his faults, and that which Zosimus the heathen writes of him should have come in to boot. We should have heard then in every declamation how he slew his nephew Commodus, a worthy man, his noble and eldest son Crispus, his wife Fausta, besides numbers of his friends: then his cruel exactions, his unsoundness in religion, favouring the Arians that had been condemned in a council, of which himself sat as it were president; his hard measure and banishment of the faithful and invincible Athanasius; his living unbaptized almost to his dying day: these blurs are too apparent in his life. But since he must needs be the lode-star of

Reformation, as some men clatter, it will be good to see further his knowledge of Religion what it was, and by that we may likewise guess at the sincerity of his times in those that were not heretical, it being likely that he would converse with the famousest prelates (for so he had made them) that were to be found for learning.

Of his Arianism we heard, and for the rest a pretty scantling. of his knowledge may be taken by his deferring to be baptized so many years, a thing not usual, and repugnant to the tenor of scripture; Philip knowing nothing that should hinder the eunuch to be baptized after profession of his belief. Next, by the excessive devotion, that I may not say superstition, both of him and his mother Helena, to find out the cross on which Christ suffered, that had long lain under the rubbish of old ruins—a thing which the disciples and kindred of our Saviour might with more ease have done, if they had thought it a pious duty ;—some of the nails whereof he put into his helmet, to bear off blows in battle; others he fastened among the studs of his bridle, to fulfil, as he thought, or his court bishops persuaded him, the prophecy of Zechariah : "And it shall be that which is in the bridle shall be holy to the Lord." Part of the cross, in which he thought such virtue to reside as would prove a kind of palladium to save the city whereever it remained, he caused to be laid up in a pillar of porphyry by his statue. How he or his teachers could trifle thus with half an eye open upon St. Paul's principles, I know not how to imagine.

How should then the dim taper of this emperor's age, that had such need of snuffing, extend any beam to our times, wherewith we might hope to be better lighted than by those luminaries that God hath set up to shine to us far nearer hand? And what Reformation he wrought for his own time, it will not be amiss to consider. He appointed certain times for fasts and feasts, built stately churches, gave large immunities to the clergy, great riches and promotions to bishops; gave and ministered occasion to bring in a deluge of ceremonies, thereby either to draw in the heathen by a resemblance of their rites, or to set a gloss upon the sim

plicity and plainness of Christianity, which to the gorgeous solemnities of paganism, and the sense of the world's children, seemed but a homely and yeomanly religion: for the beauty of inward sanctity was not within their prospect.

So that in this manner the prelates, both then and ever since, coming from a mean and plebeian life on a sudden to be lords of stately palaces, rich furniture, delicious fare and princely attendance, thought the plain and homespun verity of Christ's gospel unfit any longer to hold their lordships' acquaintance unless the poor threadbare matron were put into better clothes: her chaste and modest veil, surrounded with celestial beams, they overlaid with wanton tresses, and in a flaring tire bespeckled her with all the gaudy allurements of a whore.

Thus flourished the Church with Constantine's wealth, and thereafter were the effects that followed. His son Constantius proved a flat Arian, and his nephew Julian an apostate, and there his race ended. The Church that before by insensible degrees welked and impaired, now with large steps went down hill decaying. At this time Antichrist began first to put forth his horn, and that saying was common, that former times had wooden chalices and golden priests, but they, golden chalices and wooden priests. Formerly," saith Sulpitius, "martyrdom by glorious death was sought more greedily than now bishoprics by vile ambition are hunted after," speaking of those times. And in another place, "They gape after possessions, they tend lands and livings, they cower over their gold, they buy and sell: and if there be any that neither possess nor traffic, that which is worse they sit still and expect gifts, and prostitute every endowment of grace, every holy thing, to sale.” And in the end of his history thus he concludes: "All things went to wrack by the faction, wilfulness, and avarice of the bishops; and by this means God's people, and every good man, was had in scorn and derision.". Which St. Martin found truly to be said by his friend Sulpitius; for, being held in admiration of all men, he had only the bishops his enemies, found God less favourable to him after he was bishop than before, and for his last sixteen years would come at no bishop's meeting.

Thus you see, Sir, what Constantine's doings in the Church brought forth, either in his own or in his son's reign.

Now, lest it should be thought that something else might ail this author, thus to hamper the bishops of those days, I will bring you the opinion of three the famousest men for wit and learning that Italy at this day glories of, whereby it may be concluded for a received opinion, even among men professing the Romish faith, that Constantine marred all in the church. Dante, in his 19th Canto of Inferno, hath thus, as I will render it you in English blank verse:

"Ah Constantine! of how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains

That the first wealthy pope received of thee!"

So, in his 20th Canto of Paradise, he makes the like complaint ; and Petrarch seconds him in the same mind in his 108th sonnet, which is wiped out by the inquisitor in some editions; speaking of the Roman Antichrist as merely bred up by Constantine :

"Founded in chaste and humble poverty,

'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn.
Impudent whore, where hast thou placed thy hope?

In thy adulterers, or thy ill-got wealth?

Another Constantine comes not in haste."

Ariosto of Ferrara, after both these in time, but equal in fame, following the scope of his poem in a difficult knot how to restore Orlando, his chief hero, to his lost senses, brings Astolfo, the English knight, up into the moon, where St. John, as he feigns, met him. Cant. 34:

And, to be short, at last his guide him brings

Into a goodly valley, where he sees

A mighty mass of things strangely confused,

Things that on earth were lost, or were abused.”

And amongst these so abused things, listen what he met withal, under the conduct of the Evangelist :

"Then pass'd he to a flowery mountain green,
Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously:

This was that gift (if you the truth will have)

That Constantine to good Silvestro gave."

And this was a truth well known in England before this poet was born, as our Chaucer's Ploughman shall tell you by and by upon another occasion. By all these circumstances laid together, I do not see how it can be disputed what good this emperor Constantine wrought to the Church; but rather whether ever any, though perhaps not wittingly, set open a door to more mischief in Christendom. There is just cause therefore, that when the prelates cry out, Let the Church be reformed according to Constantine, it should sound to a judicious ear no otherwise than if they should say, Make us rich, make us lofty, make us lawless; for if any under him were not so, thanks to those ancient remains of integrity which were not yet quite worn out, and not to his government.

Thus finally it appears, that those purer times were not such as they are cried up, and not to be followed without suspicion, doubt, and danger. The last point wherein the Antiquary is to be dealt with at his own weapon, is, to make it manifest that the ancientest and best of the Fathers have disclaimed all sufficiency in themselves that men should rely on, and sent all comers to the Scriptures, as all-sufficient. That this is true, will not be unduly gathered, by showing what esteem they had of Antiquity themselves, and what validity they thought in it to prove doctrine or discipline. I must of necessity begin from the second rank of Fathers, because till then Antiquity could have no plea. Cyprian in his 63rd epistle: "If any," saith he, "of our ancestors, either ignorantly or out of simplicity, hath not observed that which the Lord taught us by his example," speaking of the Lord's Supper, "his simplicity God may pardon of his mercy; but we cannot be excused for following him, being instructed by the Lord." And have not we the same instructions? and will not this holy man, with all the whole consistory of saints and martyrs that lived of old, rise up and stop our mouths in judgment, when we shall go about to father our errors and opinions upon their authority? In the 73d epistle he adds, "In vain do they oppose custom to us, if they be overcome by reason; as if custom were greater than truth, or that in spiritual things that were not to be followed which