The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in…The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in…

Furthermore consider the decay of the towns nigh the seas, which should be most ready by the number of the people there to repulse the enemy, and we which dwell further of upon the land, having them as our buckler to defend us, should be the more in surety. If they be our neighbours, why should we not wish them to prosper? If they be our defence, as nighest at hand to repel the enemy, to keep out the rage of the seas which else would break upon our fair pastures, why should we not cherish them? Neither do we urge ⟨p. 188⟩that in the ecclesiastical policy, prescribing a form of fasting, to humble our selves in the sight of almighty God, that that order which was used among the Jews, and practised by Christs Apostles after his ascension, is of such force and necessity, that that only ought to be used among Christians, and none other, for that were to bind Gods people unto the yoke & burden of Moses policy, yea, it were the very way to bring us which are set at liberty by the freedom of Christs Gospel, into the bondage of the law again, which God forbid that any man should attempt or purpose. But to this end it serveth, to show how far the order of fasting now used in the Church at this day, differeth from that which then was used. Gods Church ought not, neither may i• be so tied to that or any other order now made, or hereafter to be made and devised by the authority of man, but that it may lawfully for just causes, alter, change, or mitigate those ecclesiastical decrees & orders, yea recede wholly from them, & break them, when they tend either to superstition, or to impiety, when they draw the people from God, rather then work any edification in them. This authority Christ him self used, and left it unto his Church. He used it I say: For the order or decree made by the elders for washing oft times, which was diligently observed of the Jews: yet tending to superstition, our saviour Christ altered and changed the same in his Church, into a profitable sacrament, the sacrament of our regeneration or new birth. This authority to mitigate laws and decrees ecclesiastical, the apostles ⟨p. 189⟩practised, when they, writing from Jerusalem ¹unto the congregation that was at Antioch, signified unto them that they would not lay any further burden upon them, but these necessaries: