William Laud Quotes

[T]he King is God's immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God's by ordinance, and the King's by execution. And the power which resides in the King is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God's power, as well in, as over, him.

So the Church and the Commonwealth, God's house, "the Temple," and the King's house, "the house of David," are met in my text. And they would ever meet, and in love, no question, did not some distempered spirits breathe sour upon them. For the Church cannot dwell but in the State. You never read that she "fled" out of the State "into the wilderness," but when some "dragon" persecuted her. And the Commonwealth cannot flourish without the Church: for where the Church is not to teach true religion, States are enforced, out of necessity of some, to embrace a false; and a false is not a help to make a kingdom flourish. But when they dwell together, when the Church, the house of grace, is a welcome inmate to the State, which is a wise fabric of nature, then in the Temple there is meeting; "the people go up to bless and praise the name of the Lord." And then in the State there is meeting, to settle the "thrones of judgment," to make firm "the house of David." And then, and never but then, "Jerusalem," that is, both State and Church, "is as a city that is at unity in itself."

For my care of this Church, the reducing of it into order, the upholding of the external worship of God in it, and the settling of it to the rules of its first reformation, are the causes (and the sole causes, whatever are pretended) of all this malicious storm, which hath lowered so black upon me, and some of my brethren.

I do not deny but that Calvin's Institutions may profitably be read, and as one of their first books for divinity, when they are well grounded in other learning; but to begin with it so soon, I am afraid doth not only hinder them from all grounds of judicious learning, but also too much possess their judgments before they are able to judge, and makes many of them humourous in, if not against the Church.

I was borne and baptized in the bosome of the Church of England established by Law; in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that I come now to dye; This is no time to dissemble with God, least of all in matter of Religion; and therefore I desire it may be remembred, I have alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion, established in England, and in that I come now to dye. What Clamours and Slanders I have endured for labouring to keepe a Uniformity in the externall service of God, according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church, all men know, and I have abundautly felt.

Tuesday, Simon and Jude's eve, I went into my upper study, to see some manuscripts, which I was sending to Oxford. In that study hung my picture, taken by the life. And coming in, I found it fallen down upon the face, and lying on the floor. The string being broken, by which it was hanged against the wall. I am almost every day threatened with my ruin in Parliament. God grant this be no omen.

For preaching is a speech to man for his edification and instruction in faith and good life. But prayer is a speech to God, to honour and worship Him, in the acknowledgment of His dominion over, and His bounty and goodness towards all creatures, but mankind especially. And therefore, though a man cannot take too much pains in that which he is to speak from God to man, lest he be proved a false relater; yet of the two, there should be more care had, what prayers he puts up for himself and the whole congregation, unto God; lest he be not only a false worshipper, but also, lest he suddenly and unadvisedly ask that, which may be hurtful unto all.

[I]t is versus altare, 'towards His altar', as the greatest place of God's residence upon earth. I say the greatest, yea, greater than the pulpit; for there 'tis Hoc est corpus meum, 'This is My body'; but in the pulpit 'tis at most but Hoc est verbum meum, 'This is My word'. And a greater reverence, no doubt, is due to the body than to the word of our Lord.

[A]lmost all of them say that God from all eternity reprobates by far the greater part of mankind to eternal fire, without any eye at all to their sin. Which opinion my very soul abominates. For it makes God, the God of all mercies, to be the most fierce and unreasonable tyrant in the world. For the question is not here, what God may do by an absolute act of power, would He so use it upon the creature which He made of nothing: but what He hath done, and what stands with His wisdom, justice, and goodness to do.

[M]y care was against all underminings, both at home and abroad, of the established doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, for which I am now like to suffer. And I pray God that point of Arminianism, libertas prophetandi [the right to proclaim different opinions], do not more mischief in short time, than is expressible by me.

Psal. cx. the people are said 'to offer their freewill offerings with an holy worship,' or 'in the beauties of holiness:' and though, perhaps, his Lordship will not allow of this translation, yet so far he may as to see the use of the phrase. And 'in the beauties of holiness,' (which keeps close to the original,) will please him less; since a barn with them is as good as a church; and no church holy with them, but that which is slovenly even to nastiness; but then 'tis void of all superstition.

Thus I said, and thus I say still; for though the foundation be one and the same in all, yet a "latitude" there is, and a large one too, when you come to consider, not the foundation common to all, but things necessary to many particular men's salvation.

You cannot have a greater desire to conform Ireland to the Church of England, than I (and this with as seeming great a desire of the King) to conform Scotland to the Church of England.

[N]o man can set a better state of the question between Scripture and tradition, than Hooker doth. His words are these: "The Scripture is the ground of our belief; the authority of man (that is the name he gives to tradition) is the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture." ... [W]e resolve our faith into Scripture as the ground; and we will never deny that tradition is the key that lets us in.

[P]rivate spirits are too giddy to rest upon Scripture, and too heady and shallow to be acquainted with demonstrative arguments.