life; and, when solicited by his friends to undertake a pastoral charge, he answered that the times required higher qualifications than he possessed, and that he was not yet sufficiently advanced in religion to become an instructor of others. But in 1552, the thirty-fifth year of his age, he yielded to their desires rather than his own inclinations, by accepting the vicarage of Norton, in the diocese of Durham, a living in the gift of the crown.

Before he went to reside in his parish he was required to preach before the king, who was then at Greenwich, in compliance with a rule applied to benefices in the royal patronage, for the exclusion of popish preachers t. In that sermon, his only published composition, he inveighed with much feeling and eloquence against the sins and corruptions of the times.

The freedom and excellence of this discourse may be inferred from the following passages.

THE FALL AND RECOVERY OF MAN.-" After that our first parents, through disobedience and sin, had blotted and disfigured the lively image of God, whereunto they were created, and might have lived alway in a conformity to the will of God; man was never able to apply himself to God his Father's business, nor yet so much as to know what appertained thereto. The natural man, saith St. Paul, perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, till Christ, the very true image of God the Father, did come down, and took man's nature upon him: which descent, as he declareth, was to fulfil for us the will of his Father, that like as by disobedience of cne man, many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one (Christ), many might be made righteous, what time has he became obedient unto, death, even the death of the cross. Which

* He took the degree of B.D. in the year 1549.

+ Amongst the Lansdowne MSS., in the British Museum, may be seen an original letter, in Latin, from Bernard Gilpin to secretary Cecil, expressing great doubts of his own fitness for the cure of souls; at the same time thanking Cecil for his kind letters on the subject, and stating himself ready to preach before the king.

The reader who notices a difference between these quotations and the words of our Bible, will remember that our translation

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obedience, lest carnal men should challenge to suffice for them, howsoever their life be a continual rebellion against God and his holy will, (such as there be a great number, and have been in all ages,)—St. Paul wipeth them clean away, saying. Christ hath become salvation, not to all, but to all that obey him.

"Let no man, therefore, flatter and deceive himself. If we will challenge the name of Christ's disciples, if we will worthily possess the glorious name of Christians, we must learn this lesson of our Master, to be occupied in our heavenly Father's business; which is, to fly our own will, which is a wicked and wanton will, and wholly to conform ourselves to. his will, saying, as we are taught, Thy will be done: which, as St. Augustine saith, the fleshly man, the covetous, adulterous, ravenous, or deceitful man, can never say, but with his lips, because in his heart he preferreth his own cursed will, setting aside the will of God.""

OBJECT OF HIS SERMON.-" Now, forasmuch as the greatest part of the world hath, at this day, forsaken their Father's business, applying their own, and are altogether drowned in sin; for the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is heavy; from the sole of the foot to the head, there is nothing whole therein; and, as St. Paul saith, all seek their own, and not that which is Jesus Christ's; and as I am here ascended into the high hill of Sion, the highest hill in all this realm, I must needs, as it is given me in commission, cry aloud and spare not; lift up my voice like a trumpet, and show the people their transgressions. I must cry unto all estates, as well of the ecclesiastical ministry, as of the civil governance with the vulgar people.

But forasmuch as example of Holy Scripture, with experience of Christ's church in all ages, hath taught us that the fall of priests is the fall of the people; and contrariwise, the integrity of them is the preservation of the whole flock; and the ministers, as Christ saith, being the light of his mystical body, if the light be turned into darkness there must needs follow great darkness in the whole body,—I think it fit to begin was not issued till the year 1611: and that the Bible then in use was that which is commonly called The Great Bible, which was published, with a preface by archbishop Cranmer, about twelve years before the date of this sermon.

with them who seem to have brought blindness into the whole body, making men to forget their heavenly Father's business. They which should have kept the candle still burning, these will I chiefly examine in that business which Christ so earnestly committed to all pastors before his ascension, when he demanded thrice of Peter if he loved him; and every time, upon Peter's confession, enjoined him straightly to feed his lambs and sheep; wherein we have the true trial of all ministers who love Christ and apply his business."

THE KING'S DUTY AS HEAD OF THE CHURCH." I will call unto you, noble Prince, as Christ's anointed. Christ's little flock here in England, which he hath committed to your charge, which wander by many thousands, as sheep having no pastors; they cry all unto you for succour, to send them home their shepherds, to the end that for things corporal they may receive spiritual; and to let one pastor have one only competent living, which he may discharge. They call upon you to expel and drive away the great drones, which in idleness devour other men's labour; that, after St. Paul's rule, he that will not labour, be not suffered to eat. The little ones have asked bread, &c. Christ's little ones have hungered and called for the food of the Gospel a long time, and none there was to give it them. Now they cry unto you: take heed you turn not your ears from them, lest their blood be required at your hands also, and lest God turn his ears from you. Samuel spake unto Saul fearful words: Because thou hast cast away the word of the Lord, the Lord hath, therefore, cast away thee from being king. You are made of God a pastor, a pastor of pastors. When David was anointed king of Israel, God said, Thou shalt feed my people Israel. You must feed, and that is, to see that all pastors do their duty. The eye of the master hath great strength. Your Grace's eye to look through your realm, and see that watchmen sleep not, shall be worth a great number of preachers. They call unto you not only to awake negligent pastors, but also to take away other enormities, which have followed in heaps upon these evils-pluralities and non-residents."

THE STATE OF RELIGION." The people are now, even as the Jews were at Christ's coming, altogether occupied in external holiness and culture, without any feeling of true holi

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ness, or of the true worship of God in spirit and truth, without which all other is mere hypocrisy. Many thousands know not what this meaneth; but seek Christ still among their kindred, in man's inventions, where they can never find him. As the Jews preferred man's traditions before God's commandments, even so it is now. Men think it a greater offence to break a fasting-day, or work upon a saint's day, than to abstain from profitable labour, and turn it to Bacchus's feasts, exercising more ungodliness that day than all the week, despising, or soon weary of God's word. All this, with much more, cometh through lack of preaching, as experience trieth where godly pastors be.".... "A thousand pulpits in England are covered with dust. Some have not had four sermons these fifteen or sixteen years, since friars left their limitations; and few of these were worthy the name of servants. Now, therefore, that your glory may be perfect, all men's expectation is, that whatsoever any flatterers, or enemies to God's word, should labour to the contrary for their own lucre, your Grace will take away all such lets and abuses as hinder the setting forth of God's most Holy Word, and withstand all such robbers as spoil his sanctuary; labouring to send pastors home to their flocks, to feed Christ's lambs and sheep, that all may be occupied in their heavenly Father's business. And for this your labour, as St. Peter saith, When the Prince of all pastors shall appear, you shall receive an incorruptible crown of glory.” NATIONAL PROVOCATIONS." God hath cause greatly to be displeased with all estates. When every man should look upon his own faults to seek amendment, as it is a proverb lately sprung up, 'No man amendeth himself, every man seeketh to amend another,' and all the while nothing is amended. Gentlemen say, the commonalty live too well at ease, they grow every day to be gentlemen, and know not themselves; their horns must be cut shorter, by raising their rents, by fines, and by plucking away their pastures. The mean men, they murmur and grudge, and say the gentlemen have all, and there were never so many gentlemen and so little gentleness; and by their natural logic you shall hear them reason, how improperly these two conjugate, these yokefellows, gentlemen and gentleness, are banished so far asunder; and they lay all the misery of this commonwealth upon the

gentlemen's shoulders. But, alas! good Christians, this is not the way of amendment: If ye bite and devour one another, as St. Paul saith, take heed lest ye be consumed one of another." COVETOUSNESS." Covetousness hath cut away the large wings of charity, and plucketh all to herself; she is never satisfied; she hath chested all the old gold of England, and much of the new; she hath made that there was never more idolatry in England than at this day; but the idols are hid, they come not abroad. Alas, noble Prince, the images of your ancestors, graven in gold, and yours also, contrary to your mind, are worshipped as gods, while the poor lively images of Christ perish in the streets through hunger and cold. This cometh when covetousness hath banished from amongst us Christian charity; when, like most unthankful children, we have forgotten Christ's last will, which he so often before his passion did inculcate, Love one another.”

TRUE RELIGION.-"As the Apostle saith, knowledge maketh a man to swell; so that if a man hath studied the Scripture all his life long, and learned the whole Bible by heart, and yet have no love, he is ignorant of God's will. The poor man that never opened a book, if the love of God be shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, surpasseth him in the knowledge of God's will. The godly Pembus, of whom we read in ecclesiastical history, when he was first taught the first verse of the 39th Psalm, I have said I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my tongue, refused a long time to take out a new lesson, judging his first lesson to be unlearned, till he could perfectly practise it by a holy conversation. So ought we always to make our account to have learned God's word, only when we have learned charity and obedience."

HEARING THE WORD.-" Would to God all that be in the court, that will not vouchsafe (having so many godly sermons) to come forth out of the hall into the chapel to hear them, would remember what a heavy stroke of God's vengeance hangeth over all their heads that condemn his Word; and over those, in all places, which had rather be idle, and many times ungodly occupied in wanton and wicked pastimes, than come to the church; profaning the Sabbath-day, appointed for the service of God, and the hearing of his Word, bestowing it more wickedly than many of the Gentiles. Yet if they would come to the sermons, though their hearts were not well