Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

AN

EXPOSITION

OF THE

XXXIX ARTICLES

OF THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

WRITTEN BY

GILBERT BISHOP OF SARUM.

OXFORD:

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

MDCCXCVI.

Clar. Press

1.4.47.

BODLEIAV

TO THE

KING.

SIR,

TH

HE title of Defender of the Faith, the nobleft of all those which belong to this imperial Crown, that has received a new luftre by Your MAJESTY's carrying it, is that which You have fo gloriously acquired, that if Your MAJESTY had not found it among them, what You have done must have fecured it to Yourself by the best of all claims. We should be as much ashamed not to give it to Your MAJESTY, as we were to give it to thofe who had been fatally led into the defign of overturning that, which has been beyond all the examples in hiftory preferved and hitherto maintained by Your MAJESTY.

The Reformation had its greatest fupport and ftrength from the Crown of England; while two of Your renowned Ancestors were the chief Defenders of it in foreign parts. The blood of England mixing fo happily with theirs, in your Royal Perfon, feemed to give the world a fure prognoftic of what might be looked for

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »