Theologians From England

"Edward Pococke (1604-1691) English Orientalist says: "At the mouths of the Indus dwell a seafaring people, active, ingenious, and enterprising as when, ages subsequent to this great movement.....these people coast along the shores of Mekran, traverse the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and again adhering to the sea-board of Oman, Hadramant, and Yeman (the Eastern Arabia), they sail up the Red Sea; and again ascending mighty stream that fertilizes a land of wonders, found the kingdom of Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia. These are the same stock that, centuries subsequently to this colonization, spread the blessings of civilization over Hellas and her islands.""

"Pococke, in his most ingenious work, strongly advocates the same idea, and endeavors to establish still more firmly the identity of the Egyptian, Greek, and Indian mythology. He shows the head of the Rajpoot Solar race -- in fact the great Cuclo-pos (Cyclop or builder) -- called "The great sun," in the earliest Hindu tradition. This Gok-la Prince, the patriarch of the vast bands of Inachienses, he says, "this Great Sun was deified at his death, and according to the Indian doctrine of the metempsychosis, his Soul was supposed to have transmigrated into the bull 'Apis,' the Sera-pis of the Greeks, and the SOORAPAS, or 'Sun-Chief' of the Egyptians. . . ."

"... so to love it [the Bible], so to cleave unto it, and so to follow it in thy daily conversation, that other men seeing thy good works and the fruits of the holy ghost in thee, may praise the father of heaven, ..."

"... be ever reading, exhorting, and teaching in God's word, that the people of God run not unto other doctrines ..."

"... to live after the law of God, and to lead a virtuous conversation, is the greatest praise that thou canst give unto his doctrine."

"In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course."

"For as soon as the Bible was cast aside, and no more put in exercise, then began every one of his own head to write whatsoever came into his brain and that seemed to be good in his own eyes: and so grew the darkness of men's traditions."

"The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning."

"... it bringeth all goodness with it, it bringeth learning, it gendereth understanding, it causeth good works, it maketh children of obedience; briefly, it teacheth all estates their office and duty."

"... and where it is taught and known, it lighteneth all darknesses, comforteth all sorry hearts, leaveth no poor man unhelped, suffereth nothing amiss unamended, letteth no prince be disobeyed, permitteth no heresy to be preached; but reformeth all things, amendeth that is amiss, and setteth every thing in order."

"... God not only punisheth the wicked, but proveth and trieth the just and righteous (howbeit there is no man innocent in his sight) by diverse troubles in this life, declaring thereby, that they are not his bastards, but his dear sons, and that he loveth them."

"In the Psalms we learn how to resort only unto God in all our troubles, to seek help at him, to call only upon him, to settle our minds by patience, and how we ought in prosperity to be thankful unto him."

"if thou find ought therein that thou understandest not, or that appeareth to be repugnant, give no temeritous nor hasty judgment thereof: but ascribe it to thine own ignorance, not to the scripture, ..."

"... and have ever an eye to the words of scripture, ..."

"If thou be a preacher, and hast the oversight of the flock of Christ, awake and feed Christ's sheep with a good heart ..."

"... the word of God is the only truth that driveth awaye all lies, and discloseth all Juggling and deceit, ..."

"... take these words of Scripture into thy heart, and be not only an outward hearer, but a doer thereafter, and practice thyself therein, that thou mayest feel in thine heart, the sweet promises thereof for thy consolation in all trouble, and for the sure establishing of thy hope in Christ, ..."

"And above all things fashion thy life and conversation according to the doctrine of the holy ghost therein, that thou mayest be partaker of the good promises of God in the Bible, and be heir of his blessing in Christ."

"... seeing that light is come into the world, love no more the works of darkness, receive not the grace of God in vain."

"... when thou readest scripture, be wise and circumspect: ..."

"Christ was the true prophet, the true Messiah, and the only true Saviour of the world, sent of his heavenly father to suffer the most cruel, most shameful, and most necessary death for our redemption: according to the meaning of the prophesy truly understood."

"For as false doctrine is the original cause of all evil plagues and destruction, so is the true executing of the law of God and the preaching of the same, the mother of all godly prosperity."

"... defend the faith, yea even the true faith of Christ, not dreams, not fables, not heresy, not papistical inventions, but the uncorrupted faith of God’s most holy word, ..."

"... the scripture of God teacheth us every thing sufficiently, both what we ought to do, and what we ought to leave undone; whom we are bound to obey, and whom we should not obey; therefore (I say) it causeth all prosperity, and setteth every thing in frame; ..."

"For the ungodly talie and ymagin thus amonge themselves (but not right:) The tyme of oure life is but short and tedious, and when a man is once gone, he hath nomore joye ner pleasure, nether knowe we eny man that turneth agayne from death: for we are borne of naught, and we shal be herafter as though we had never bene. For oure breth is as a smoke in oure nostrels, and the wordes as a sparck to move oure herte. As for oure body, it shalbe very asshes that are quenched, and oure soule shal vanish as the soft ayre. Oure life shall passe awaye as the trace of a cloude, and come to naught as the myst that is dryven awaye with the beames of the Sonne, and put downe with the heate therof. Oure name also shalbe forgotten by litle and litle, and no man shal have oure workes in remembraunce.For oure tyme is a very shadow that passeth awaye, and after oure ende there is no returnynge, for it is fast sealed, so that no man commeth agayne. Come on therfore, let us enjoye the pleasures that there are, and let us soone use the creature like as in youth. We wil fyll oure selves with good wyne and oyntment, there shal no floure of the tyme go by us. We wil crowne oure selves with roses afore they be wythered. There shal be no fayre medowe, but oure lust shal go thorow it. Let every one of you be partaker of oure volupteousnes. Let us leave some token of oure pleasure in every place, for that is oure porcion, els gett we nothinge. ...Soch thinges do the ungodly ymagin, and go astraye, for their owne wickednes hath blynded them. As for the misteries of God, they understonde them not : they nether hope for the rewarde of righteousnesse, ner regarde the worshipe that holy soules shall have. For God created man to be undestroied, yee after the ymage of his awne licknesse made he him. Neverthelesse thorow envye of the devell came death in to the worlde, and they that holde of his syde, do as he doth.But the soules of the righteous are in the hande of God, and the payne of death shal not touch them. In the sight of the unwyse they appeare to dye, and their ende is taken for very destruccion. The waye of the righteous is judged to be utter destruccion, but they are in rest. And though they suffre payne before men, yet is their hope full of immortalite."

"In the XXI. yere, whan Kyng Philip of Frauns was fled thus cowardly fro the sege of Caleys, thei of the same town offered the town to Kyng Edward withoute any poyntment. And he lay in the town a month, considering the strong disposicion thereof. Thanne, at instauns of the Pope, was taken trews betwix the two Kyngis for a yere. Aboute the fest of Seynt Michael, the Kyng took the se into Ynglond and there had he grete tempest, and mervelous wyndes; and thanne he mad swech a compleynt onto oure Lady, and seide, O blessed Mayde, what menyth al this? Evyr, whan I go to Frauns, I have fayre wedir, and whanne I turne to Ynglond intolerable tempestes.In the XXII. yere were grete reynes, whech dured fro the Nativite of Seynt Jon Baptist onto Cristmasse.And aftir that reyne there folowid a grete pestilens, specialy in the Est side of the world amongst the Sarasines. So many deied, that there left scarsly among hem the tenth man, or the tenth woman. Thei, seyng this veniauns amongst hem, purposed veryly to be Cristen. But whan thei wist that the pestilens was among the Cristen men, than her good purpos sesed.In the XXIII. yere was the Grete Pestilens of puple. First it began in the north cuntre; than in the south; and so forth thorw oute the reme. Aftir this pestilens folowed a moreyn of bestis, whech had nevir be seyn. For, as it was supposed, there left not in Inglond the ten part of the puple. Than cesed lordes rentis, prestis tithes. Because there were so fewe tylmen, the erde lay untillid. So mech misery was in the lond, that the prosperite whech was before was nevir recured."

"I am compelled, almost alone, to engage with enemies, I know not whether to call them foreign or domestic ones. They are indeed our own countrymen, but enemies in heart, dwelling in a hostile land... [O]ur enemies, when they accuse our cause of novelty, both wrong us and deceive the people; for that they approve new things as if they were old, and condemn as new things of the greatest antiquity; that private masses, and mutilated communions, and natural and real presence, and transubstantiation, &c. (in which things the whole of their religion is contained), have no certain and express testimony either of holy scripture, or of ancient councils, or of fathers, or of anything that could be called antiquity."

"The philosopher telleth us, truth and falsehood are nigh neighbours, and dwell one by the other: the utter porch of the one is like the porch of the other; yet their way is contrary: the one leadeth to life; the other leadeth to death: they differ little to the shew, save that oft-times the door of falsehood is fair, painted, graven, and beautifully adorned; but the door or forefront of truth is plain and homely. Thereby it happeneth that men be deceived; they mistake the door, and go into error's house, when they seek truth. They call evil good, falsehood truth, and darkness light. They forsake that is good, deny the truth, and love not the light."

"Jewel throughout his life was a diligent student, and made methodical notes of all that he read. He thus collected a mass of knowledge which was easily available for controversial purposes. He possessed a remarkable power of verbal memory, which made him a prodigy in the eyes of his friends. These qualities gave his writings an air of cold and mechanical precision, which was the natural result of his deliberate method. First he considered carefully the points which he wished to prove; then he selected the authorities whom he wished to quote in support of his position; he gave the references to a secretary, who copied out in full the passages specified; finally he arranged his argument in proper shape and embodied his quotations. Thus Jewel's writings are always clear, and the argument is conclusive within the limits which he has prescribed; but they are strictly logical, and make no appeal to the emotions. For that very reason they corresponded with the temper of England at the time, and did much to stamp upon anglican theology its distinguishing characteristics of reasonableness and sound learning."

"This [Apology for the Church of England] was the first elaborate statement of the Anglican position in a work of first-rate importance, and it was immediately accepted as a clear and powerful exposition of that view. It remains one of the classic treatises of the Anglican ecclesiology. The Apology provoked a fresh attack from the Catholics. What with these writings and controversies, the cares of the diocese, activity in the general work of the church, and assiduous preaching, Jewel's never very strong health gave way. In 1571 he came home from Parliament much exhausted, but immediately undertook a visitation of his diocese. To the remonstrance of a friend he answered, "A bishop had best die preaching," and it was not long before the end came, in September, 1571."

"Personally Jewel had the kindliness and evenness of temper which characterise a true scholar. He was diligent in the discharge of his episcopal duties, and strove to set an example to his clergy of assiduous preaching. He showed his zeal for the advance of learning by building a library for the cathedral of Salisbury. He also used to maintain in his house and train for the university a few boys of promise. Among others whom he thus befriended was Richard Hooker, whom he educated at his expense and sent to Oxford. Hooker spoke of him as "the worthiest divine that Christendom had bred for some hundreds of years;" and it is clear that Hooker learned from Jewel the method and fundamental principles which he afterwards employed with greater fervour and literary skill than his master."

"Your grace, when God sent you to your inheritance and the right of this realm, found the church in horrible confusion, and in respect of the true worship of God a church of brick, or rather (as Ezechiel saith) daubed up with unseasoned mortar. Your grace hath already redressed the doctrine: now cast your eyes towards the ministry; give courage and countenance unto learning, that God's house may be served; so shall you leave a church of God, and a testimony that the zeal of the Lord's house hath eaten you up."

"This only will I speak, and that in a word: they which brought in transubstantiations, masses, calling upon saints, sole life, purgatory, images, vows, trifles, follies, babbles, into the church of God, have delivered new things, and which the scriptures never heard of. Whatsoever they cry or crack, they bring not a jot out of the word of God... These they honour instead of the scriptures, and force them to the people instead of the word of God: upon these men suppose their salvation and the sum of religion to be grounded."

"I wish that all, even the slightest vestiges of popery, might be removed from our churches, and above all from our minds. But the queen at this time is unable to endure the least alteration in matters of religion."

"[W]e have searched out of the holy bible, which we are sure cannot deceive, one sure form of religion, and have returned again unto the primitive church of the ancient fathers and apostles, that is to say, to the first ground and beginning of things, as unto the very foundations and head-springs of Christ's church... [A]s the holy fathers in former time, and as our predecessors have commonly done, we have restored our churches by a provincial convocation, and have clean shaken off, as our duty was, the yoke and tyranny of the bishop of Rome, to whom we were not bound, who also had no manner of thing like neither to Christ, nor to Peter, nor to an apostle, nor yet like to any bishop at all."

"[I]f we do shew it plain, that God's holy gospel, the ancient bishops and the primitive church do make on our side, and that we have not without just cause left these men, and rather have returned to the apostles and old catholic fathers; and if we shall be found to do the same not colourably, or craftily, but in good faith before God, truly, honestly, clearly, and plainly; and if they themselves which fly our doctrine, and would be called catholics, shall manifestly see how all those titles of antiquity, whereof they boast so much, are quite shaken out of their hands, and that there is more pith in this our cause than they thought for; we then hope and trust, that none of them will be so negligent and careless of his own salvation, but he will at length study and bethink himself, to whether part he were best to join him."

"[W]e have exhibited to the queen all our articles of religion and doctrine, and have not departed in the slightest degree from the confession of Zurich."

"We found every where the people sufficiently well disposed towards religion, and even in those quarters where we expected most difficulty. It is however hardly credible what a harvest, or rather what a wilderness of superstition had sprung up in the darkness of the Marian times. We found in all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated people dreamed that Christ had been pierced, and I know not what small fragments of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorceresses had every where become enormous. The cathedral churches were nothing else but dens of thieves, or worse, if any thing worse or more foul can be mentioned"

"For the rage of the papists among us at this time is scarcely credible; and rather than seem to have been in error in any respect, they most impotently precipitate and throw all things into confusion. May that God whose honour and glory alone we look to, aid our endeavours, and confound the conspiracies and wicked designs of his enemies!"

"If any learned man of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old catholic doctor, or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the holy scriptures of God, or any one example of the primitive church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved that there was any private mass in the whole world at that time, for the space of six hundred years after Christ; Or that there was then any communion ministered unto the people under one kind; Or that the people had their common prayers then in a strange tongue that they understood not; Or that the bishop of Rome was then called an universal bishop, or the head of the universal church; Or that the people was then taught to believe that Christ's body is really, substantially, corporally, carnally, or naturally, in the sacrament... Or that whosoever had said the sacrament is a figure, a pledge, a token, or a remembrance of Christ's body, had therefore been judged for an heretic; Or that it was lawful then to have thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or five masses said in one church, in one day; Or that images were then set up in the churches, to the intent the people might worship them; Or that the lay people was then forbidden to read the word of God in their own tongue—if any man alive were able to prove any of these articles by any one clear or plain clause or sentence, either of the scriptures, or of the old doctors, or of any old general council, or by any example of the primitive church; I promised then that I would give over and subscribe unto him."

"As for the Apology, it hath not only in all points and respects satisfied me, (by whom all your writings are so wonderfully well liked and approved,) but it appeared also to Bullinger, and his sons and sons-in-law, and also to Gualter and Wolfius, so wise, admirable, and eloquent, that they can make no end of commending it, and think that nothing in these days hath been set forth more perfectly. I exceedingly congratulate your talents upon this excellent fruit, the church upon this edifying of it, and England upon this honour."

"I know that without some fervour in the love of Christ, religion cannot be to you savoury, nor any work of goodness can be delectable, but every virtuous deed shall seem laborious and painful. For love maketh every work appear easy and pleasant, though it be right displeasant of itself. And contrariwise right easy labour appeareth grievous and painful, when the soul of the person that doeth the deed hath no desire nor love in doing of it. This thing may well appear by the life of hunters, the which out of doubt is more laborious and painful than is the life of religious persons, and yet nothing sustaineth them in their labour and pains but the earnest love and hearty desire to find their game."

"The other great advantage of the seasons, both earthly and liturgical, is that they circle slowly round quite independently of one’s own moods and thus become a corrective and offer perspective. I may be feeling glum, but Easter reminds me of resurrection anyway, I may be swayed by some splurge of Christmas consumerism but Advent reminds me that all I really need is the savior who is coming and for whose advent I should prepare. So the seasons, like all the old liturgical patterns, like the practice of reading scripture, can set us free from the tyranny of our own mood swings. In that sense they are always a blessing."

"[B]y the end of the nineteenth century... ...a rapid change had set in. Men were no longer convinced that the writers of Scripture knew more about a future life than they did themselves. Historical criticism began to suggest that writers who were far from infallible in their descriptions of the past were not wholly to be trusted in their prognostications of the future.""

"If you look through the Earth, you shall see, That the landlords, Teachers and Rulers, are Oppressors, Murtherers, and Theeves in this manner; But it was not thus from the Beginning. And this is one Reason of our digging and labouring the Earth one with another; That we might work in righteousness, and lift up the Creation from bondage: For so long as we own Landlords in this Corrupt Settlement, we cannot work in righteousness; for we should still lift up the Curse, and tread down the Creation, dishonour the Spirit of universal Liberty, and hinder the work of Restauration."

"O what mighty Delusion, do you, who are the powers of England live in! That while you pretend to throw down that Norman yoke, and Babylonish power, and have promised to make the groaning people of England a Free People; yet you still lift up that Norman yoke, and slavish Tyranny, and holds the People as much in bondage, as the Bastard Conquerour himself, and his Councel of War."

"That so long as we, or any other, doth own the Earth to be the peculier Interest of Lords and Landlords, and not common to others as well as them, we own the Curse, and holds the Creation under bondage; and so long as we or any other doth own Landlords and Tennants, for one to call the Land his, or another to hire it of him, or for one to give hire, and for another to work for hire; this is to dishonour the work of Creation; as if the righteous Creator should have respect to persons, and therefore made the Earth for some, and not for all: And so long as we, or any other maintain this Civil Propriety, we consent still to hold the Creation down under that bondage it groans under, and so we should hinder the work of Restoration, and sin against Light that is given into us, and so through fear of the flesh man, lose our peace. And that this Civil Propriety is the Curse, is manifest thus, Those that Buy and Sell Land, and are landlords, have got it either by Oppression, or Murther, or Theft; and all landlords lives in the breach of the Seventh and Eighth Commandements, Thous shalt not steal, nor kill."

"Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, the ideal of equality was an aspiration that occasionally produced social violence but lacked both a theory and a strategy. Thus, in seventeenth-century England, Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of a radical group called the Diggers, exhorted his followers to seize the commons and turn them into arable land. He formulated something like a communistic doctrine that denounced commerce in land or its product. During the French Revolution, a century and a half later, the French radical François-Noël Babeuf organized a “Conspiracy for Equality,” which called for the socialization of all property. Neither man, however, had a doctrine capable of demonstrating how the kind of social revolution he advocated would come into being. The same held true of socialist idealists active in the early nineteenth century, such as the Comte de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, who pinned their hopes on persuading the rich to part with their wealth."

"And whereas the Scriptures speak, that the mark of the Beast is 666, the number of a man; and that those that do not bring that mark in their hands or in their foreheads, they should neither buy nor sell, Revel. 13.16: and seeing the numbering letters round about the English money make 666,* which is the number of that kingly power and glory (called a man); and seeing the age of the creation is now come to the image of the Beast or half day, and seeing 666 is his mark, we expect this to be the last tyrannical power that shall reign; and that people shall live freely in the enjoyment of the earth, without bringing the mark of the Beast in their hands or in their promise; and that they shall buy wine and milk without money or without price, as Isaiah speaks."

"O thou A-dam, thu Esau, thou Cain, thou Hypocritical man of flesh, when wilt thou cease to kill thy younger Brother? Surely thou must not do this great work of advancing the Creation out of Bondage; for thou art lost extremely, and drowned in the Sea of Covetousnesse, Pride, and hardness of heart. The blessing shall rise out of the dust which thou treadest under foot, Even the poor despised People, and they shall hold up Salvation to this Land, and to all Lands, and thou shalt be ashamed."