ke
you the instruments of His glory in advancing it, and that doth much add
unto your honour. Was it an honour to the Tyrians that they were counted
amongst the builders of the Temple when Hiram sent to Solomon things
necessary for that work? How, then, hath God honoured you, reserving to
you the care of re-edifying His Church (the throne of the living God) and
the repairing of the shattered Commonwealth, so far borne down before He
raised you to support it, that succeeding ages may with honour to your
names, say, "This was the Reforming Parliament," a work which God, by His
blessing on your unwearied pains, hath much furthered already, whilst He,
by you, hath removed the rubbish that might hinder the raising up of that
godly structure appointed and prescribed by the Lord in His Word.' They
were to stick to the truth, contended the preacher, quoting the edict of
the Emperor Justinian in the Arian controversy, and the reply of Basil
the Great to the Emperor's deputy: 'That none trained up in Holy
Scriptures would suffer one syllable of Divine truth to be betrayed; but
were ready, if it be required, to suffer any death in the defence
thereof.' People, he maintained, are ever carried on by the example of
their governors. 'How,' he asks, 'was the Eastern Empire polluted with
execrable Arianism, whilst yet the Western continued in the truth? The
historians give the reason of it. Constantine, an Arian, ruled in the
East when at the same time Constans and Constantius, sons to Constantine
the Great, treading in the steps of their pious father, adhered to the
truth professed by him, and so did as far ennoble the Western Empire with
the truth as the other did defile the Eastern with his countenancing of
error and heresy.' The preacher here asks his hearers to make no laws
against religion and piety, and 'recall such as have been made in time of
ignorance against the same, and study to uphold and maintain such
profitable and wholesome laws as have been formerly enacted for God and
His people. Improve what was well begun by others before you, and not
perfected by them.' Under this latter head he dwelt on the possible
abuse of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the irreligious
profanation of the Lord's Day.

In 1643 the Earl of Manchester ejected many of the Royalist clergymen
from their livings who were scandalous ministers. Dr. Sterne having been
deprived of the mastership of Jesus College, Cambridge, the Stowm