beasts, if two couple of a near kind, the breed proves not so good. The same observation they make in plants and trees, which degenerate being grafted upon the same stock. And it is also further observed, those matches between cousin-germans seldom prove fortunate. But for the lawfulness there is no colour but cousin-germans in England may marry, both by the law of God and man: for with us we have reduced all the degrees of marriage to those in the Levitical law, and it is plain there is nothing against it. As for that that is said, cousin-germans once removed may not marry, and therefore being a further degree may not, it is presumed a nearer should not, no man can tell what it means.

MEASURE OF THINGS.

1. WE measure from ourselves, and as things are for our use and purpose, so we approve them. Bring a pear to the table that is rotten, we cry it down, it is naught; but bring a medlar that is rotten, and it is a fine thing; and yet I'll warrant you the pear thinks as well of itself as the medlar does.

2. We measure the excellency of other men, by some excellency we conceive to be

in ourselves. Nash, a poet, poor enough, as poets used to be, seeing an alderman with his gold chain, upon his great horse, by way of scorn said to one of his companions, Do you see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he looks? why that fellow cannot make a blank verse.

3. Nay, we measure the goodness of God from ourselves, we measure his goodness, his justice, his wisdom, by something we call just, good, or wise in ourselves; and in so doing, we judge proportionably to the country fellow in the play, who said, if he were a king, he would live like a lord, and have pease and bacon every day, and a whip that cried slash.

DIFFERENCE OF MEN.

THE difference of men is very great; you would scarce think them to be of the same species, and yet it consists more in the affection than in the intellect. For as in the strength of body, two men shall be of an equal strength, yet one shall appear stronger than the other, because he exercises, and puts out his strength; the other will not stir nor strain himself. So it is in the strength of the brain, the one endeavours, and strains, and labours, and studies; the other sits still, and is idle,

and takes no pains, and therefore he appears so much the inferior.

MINISTER DIVINE.

1. THE imposition of hands upon the minister when all is done, will be nothing but a designation of a person to this or that office, or employment in the church. It is a ridiculous phrase that of the canonists, conferre ordines; it is, coaptare aliquem in ordinem, to make a man one of us, one of our number, one of our order. So Cicero would understand what I said, it being a phrase borrowed from the Latines, and to be understood proportionably to what was amongst them.

2. Those words you now use in making a minister, receive the Holy Ghost, were used amongst the Jews in making of a lawyer; from thence we have them, which is a villanous key to something; as if you would have some other kind of prefature than a mayoralty, and yet keep the same ceremony that was used in making the mayor.

3. A priest has no such thing as an indelible character; what difference do you find betwixt him and another man after ordination? Only he is made a priest, as I said, by desig

nation as a lawyer is called to the bar, then made a sergeant. All men that would get power over others, make themselves as unlike them as they can; upon the same ground the priests made themselves unlike the laity.

4. A minister when he is made is materia prima, apt for any form the state will put upon him, but of himself he can do nothing. Like a doctor of law in the university, he hath a great deal of law in him, but cannot use it till he be made somebody's chancellor; or like a physician, before he be received into a house, he can give nobody physic; indeed after the master of the house hath given him charge of his servants, then he may. Or like a suffragan, that could do nothing but give orders, and yet he was no bishop.

5. A minister should preach according to the articles of religion established in the church where he is. To be a civil lawyer let a man read Justinian, and the body of the law, to confirm his brain to that way; but when he comes to practice, he must make use of it so far as it concerns the law received in his own country. To be a physician, let a man read Galen and Hippocrates; but when he practises, he must apply his medicines according to the temper of those men's bodies

with whom he lives, and have respect to the heat and cold of climes; otherwise that which in Pergamus, where Galen lived, was physic, in our cold climate may be poison. So to be a divine, let him read the whole body of divinity, the fathers and the schoolmen; but when he comes to practice he must use it, and apply it according to those grounds and articles of religion that are established in the church, and this with sense.

6. There be four things a minister should be at; the conscionary part, ecclesiastical story, school divinity, and the casuists.

1st. In the conscionary part he must read all the chief fathers, both Latin and Greek wholly. St. Austin, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostome, both the Gregories, &c. Tertullian, Clemens, Alexandrinus, and Epiphanius; which last have more learning in them than all the rest, and writ freely.

2d. For ecclesiastical story let him read Baronius, with the Magdeburgenses, and be his own judge; the one being extremely for the Papists, the other extremely against them.

3d. For school divinity let him get Javellus's edition of Scotus or Mayco, where there be quotations that direct you to every schoolman, where such and such questions are