OP THE PACIFICATION OF THE CHURCH. 65 



direction. But on the other side, who knoweth not, 

 that time is truly compared to a stream, that car- 

 rieth down fresh and pure waters into that salt sea 

 of corruption which environeth all human actions ? 

 And therefore, if man shall not by his industry, 

 virtue, and policy, as it were with the oar, row 

 against the stream and inclination of time ; all insti 

 tutions and ordinances, be they never so pure, will 

 corrupt and degenerate. But not to handle this 

 matter common-place like, I would only ask, why 

 the civil state should be purged and restored by 

 good and wholesome laws, made every third or 

 fourth year in parliament assembled ; devising reme 

 dies as fast as time breedeth mischief: and contra 

 riwise the ecclesiastical state should still continue 

 upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration 

 now for these five and forty years and more ? If any 

 man shall object, that if the like intermission had 

 been used in civil causes also, the error had not been 

 great: surely the wisdom of the kingdom hath been 

 otherwise in experience for three hundred years 

 space at the least. But if it be said to me, that 

 there is a difference between civil causes and eccle 

 siastical, they may as well tell me that churches and 

 chapels need no reparations, though castles and 

 houses do : whereas commonly, to speak truth, dila 

 pidations of the inward and spiritual edifications of 

 the Church of God are in all times as great as the 

 outward and material. Sure I am that the very 

 word and stile of reformation used by our Saviour, 

 &quot; ab initio non fuit sic,&quot; was applied to Church 



VOL. VII. F 



