ter. So
doth Arnobius(1378) answer the pagans, who objected the novelty of the
Christian religion: You should not look so much (saith he) _quid
reliquerimus_ as _quid secuti simus_; be rather satisfied with the good
which we follow, than to quarrel why we have changed our former practise.
He giveth instance, that when men found the art of weaving clothes, they
did no longer clothe themselves in skins; and when they learned to build
houses, they left off to dwell in rocks and caves. All this carrieth
reason with it, for _optimum est eligendum_. If all this satisfy not, it
may be Nazianzen's rule(1379) will move some man: When there was a great
stir about his archbishopric of Constantinople, he yielded for peace;
because this storm was raised for his sake, he wished to be cast into the
sea. He often professeth that he did not affect riches, nor dignities, but
rather to be freed of his bishopric. We are like to listen long before we
hear such expressions either from archbishop or bishop in England, who
seem not to care much who sink, so that themselves swim above. Yet I shall
name one rule more, which I shall take from the confessions of two English
prelates. One(1380) of them hath this contemplation upon Hezekiah's taking
away the brazen serpent, when he perceived it to be superstitiously
abused: "Superstitious use (saith he) can mar the very institutions of
God, how much more the most wise and well-grounded devices of men?"
Another(1381) of them acknowledged that whatsoever is taken up at the
injunction of men, and is not of God's own prescribing, when it is drawn
to superstition, cometh under the case of the brazen serpent. You may
easily make the assumption, and then the conclusion, concerning those
ceremonies which are not God's institutions but men's devices, and have
been grossly and notoriously abused by many to superstition.

Now to return to the point in hand, if upon all or any of these, or the
like principles, any of this kingdom shall join in the removal of
corruptions out of the church, which yet they do not conceive to be in
themselves, and intrinsically corruptions in religion, in this case I say
with the Apostle, "I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice," Phil. i.
18, because every way reformation is set forward. But let such an one look
to himself, how the doctrine drawn from this text falleth upon him, that
he who only ceaseth to do evil, but repenteth not of the evil,--he who
applieth himself to refo