66 OF THE PACIFICATION OF THE CHURCH. 



matters, and those of the highest nature, concern 

 ing the law moral. 



Nevertheless, he were both unthankful and un 

 wise, that would deny but that the Church of 

 England, during the time of Queen Elizabeth, of 

 famous memory, did flourish. If I should compare 

 it with foreign churches, I would rather the compa 

 rison should be in the virtues, than, as some make 

 it, in the defects ; rather, I say, as between the vine 

 and the olive, which should be most fruitful ; and 

 not as between the brier and the thistle, which 

 should be most unprofitable. For that reverence 

 should be used to the Church, which the good sons 

 of Noah used to their father s nakedness ; that is, 

 as it were to go backwards, and to help the defects 

 thereof, and yet to dissemble them. And it is to be 

 acknowledged, that scarcely any Church, since the 

 primitive Church, yielded, in like number of years 

 and latitude of country, a greater number of excel 

 lent preachers, famous writers, and grave governors. 

 But for the discipline and orders of the Church, 

 as many, and the chiefest of them, are holy and good ; 

 so yet, if St. John were to indite an epistle to the 

 Church of England, as he did to them of Asia, it 

 would sure have the clause ; &quot; habeo adversus te 

 pauca.&quot; And no more for this point, saving, that as 

 an appendix thereto it is not amiss to touch that 

 objection, which is made to the time, and not to the 

 matter ; pretending, that if reformation were neces 

 sary, yet it were not now seasonable at your Majes 

 ty s first entrance : yet Hippocrates saith, &quot; Si quid 



