RICHARD BANCROFT QUOTES
Archbishop of Canterbury (1544-1610)
Whereas there is among you envy and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
All Christian men should read the Scriptures, buy unto themselves Bibles, and meditate continually upon the word of God, so as, thereby, their eyes might be opened, their consciences comforted, their faith nourished, and their hope lifted up to a full assurance of the promises therein contained.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Where Christ erecteth his church, the devil in the same churchyard will have his chapel.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Many false prophets are gone out. Are gone out, that is, are manifest. Before, they lay hid in the Church, but now, by their schisms, they have made themselves known.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
A very strange matter, if it be true, that Christ should erect a form of government for the ruling of His Church, to continue from His departure out of the world until His coming again, and that the same should never be once thought of or put in practice for the space of fifteen hundred years, or at the least (to take them at the best), that the government and kingdom of Christ should then be overthrown, when, by all men's confessions, the Divinity of His Person, the virtue of His Priesthood, the power of His Office, as He is a Prophet, and the honor of His kingly authority, was so godly, so learnedly, and so mightily established against the Arians in the Council of Nice, as that the confession of the Christian Faith then set forth, hath ever since, without contradiction, been received in the Church.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Now of the quality of those prophets, they are "false:" false in doctrine and false in conversation. In respect of their doctrine, they are called, in the Scriptures, "Spirits of error, seducers, deceivers, jugglers, authors of diverse sects, false speakers, and the children of the devil, who is the father of all falsehood." In respect of their conversation they are said to be humble and lowly in outward show, but yet of nature very contentious and unquiet, doting about questions and strife of words; whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings. Their mouths do speak proud things, and "swelling words of vanity ;" likewise dangerous things. They are bold and stand in their own conceit ; they despise government, and fear not to speak evil of them that are in dignity and authority; whereas the angels which are greater, both in power and might, give not railing judgment against them before the Lord. They are libelers, and do speak evil of those things which they know not. They are bolder in avouching their untruths and in depraving their superiors, than Michael, the archangel, when he strove against the devil.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
This form of government they call the Tabernacle which God hath appointed, the glory of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, the presence of God, the place which He hath chosen to put His name there, the court of the Lord, and the shining forth of God's glory. Where this ecclesiastical synod is not erected, they say, God's ordinance is not performed; the office of Christ, as He is a king, is not acknowledged: in effect, that without this government we can never attain to a right and true feeling of Christian religion, but are to be reckoned amongst those who are accounted to say of Christ, as it is in St. Luke, "We will not have this man to reign over us."
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
First, they forbid them the reading of the Scriptures; and the better to be obeyed therein, they will not permit the Scriptures to be translated into their vulgar tongue. Whereof it came to pass that the people were so easily seduced and drawn from Christ to the Pope; from His merits, to the saints and their own merits; from His bloody sacrifice, whereby only sins are remitted, to their most dry and fruitless sacrifice from the spiritual good of His body and blood, unto a carnal and Capernaical transubstantiation; from the calling upon His name, to the invocation of saints; and from their sure trust and confidence in His death, to a vain imagination of the virtue of their masses, pilgrimages, and pardons, and I know not to what intolerable superstition and idolatry.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Almighty God, grant unto them, and to every one of us, such grace from above as that we may not willfully infringe His holy commandments, prohibiting us to covet other men's goods, but with all thankfulness to satisfy ourselves with those benefits which He hath already bestowed upon us.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Seeing, then, dearly beloved, that there are many prophets, and of false disposition, which, through contempt of ecclesiastical government, through ambition, self-love, and covetousness, have made a great schism in the Church, and do continue amongst us for the trial of our faith, the glory of God, and that we might more carefully search out and hold fast the Truth: you see how necessary this exhortation of the Apostle is, "Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God."
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
For this hath ever been reckoned a most certain ground and principle in religion, that that Church, which maintaineth, without error, the faith of Christ; which holdeth the true doctrine of the Gospel in matters necessary to salvation, and preacheth the same; which retaineth the lawful use of those Sacraments only which Christ, hath appointed, and which appointeth vice to be punished and virtue to be maintained; notwithstanding, in some other respects and in some points, it have many blemishes, imperfections, nay, divers and sundry errors, is yet to be acknowledged for the Mother of the faithful, the house of God, the ark of Noah, the pillar of Truth, and the spouse of Christ. From which Church whosoever doth separate himself, he is to be reckoned a schismatic or an heretic.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
The children of God (you know) are heirs of the world, and these things which the wicked have they enjoy by usurpation.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
The best amongst us, in like manner, I fear, are come to the same pass that they were in Melancthon's time, who complained as he writeth in this sort: "We understand whom to avoid (meaning the Papists), yet whom to follow we know not."
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
True it is that Almighty God, if it had stood with His good pleasure, could easily have brought it to pass, in spite of the Devil, that there should never have been any such false prophets or heresies amongst us. But He saw it not to be expedient; for, as the Apostle saith, by His directions, "There must be heresies in the Church ... that faith, by having temptation, might also have probation."
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Touching the causes why false prophets, with so great danger of their souls, do depart from the Church: if we respect them as they are indeed, I can say nothing, but as it is contained in the old distinction: "they were in the Church, but not of the Church."
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
So as all the complaints which in times past have been made hereof, may truly be applied to these our days, wherein we now live.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
For I am fully of this opinion, that the hope which many men have conceived of the spoil of bishops' livings, of the subversion of cathedral churches, and of a havoc to be made of all the Church's revenues, is the chiefest and most principal cause of the greatest schisms that we have at this day in our Church.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Of the times in like manner wherein we now live, the Apostle Paul did prophecy that there should be many false prophets: and we do see his sayings therein to be fulfilled.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
Nay, in my opinion, you ought to be ashamed to open your mouths ever hereafter against the present government of the Church, and for the new platform, until you can be contented to be so far from coveting the goods of the Church, as that you are both willing and ready to deliver out of your hand such spoils and preys thereof as you have already.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589
You have an equal portion with the best in the kingdom of God, and will you suffer this unequal distribution of these worldly benefits? Consider how, in the Apostles' time, the faithful had all things common. They came and laid their goods at the Apostles' feet; and division was thereof made according to every man's necessity. You cannot but groan under the heavy burden which is laid upon you. Your landlords do wring and grind your faces for the maintenance of their pride in apparel, their excess in diet, their unnecessary pleasures, as gaming, keeping of hawks and dogs, and such like vanities. They enhance your rents, they take great fines, and do keep you in very unchristian slavery and bondage.
RICHARD BANCROFT
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, February 9, 1589