If a

HE unwillingness of the Monks to part with Abbeys. their Lands, will fall out to be just nothing, Priories because they were yielded up to the King by a Supreme Hand, (viz.) a Parliament. King conquer another Country, the People are loth to lose their Lands; yet no Divine will deny but the King may give them to whom he please. If a Parliament make a Law concerning Leather, or any other Commodity, you and I, for Example, are Parliament-Men; perhaps in respect to our own private Interests, we are against it, yet the major part concludes it; we are then involved, and the Law is good.

2. When the Founders of Abbeys laid a Curse upon those that should take away those Lands, I would fain know what Power they had to curse me. 'Tis 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

I

Abbeys. deserves God should curse me for it. On the Priories other side, 'tis 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 (R.) William 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 100,000l. 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.

II

Articles

'HE nine and thirty Articles

are much

Tanother thing in Latin, (in which tongue

they were made) than they are translated into English. They were made at three several