XII. THE FIRST-FRUITS.

PAPISTS observe (such are curious priers into Protestants’ carriage) that charity in England lay in a swoon from the dissolution of 172abbeys, in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, till about the tenth of Queen Elizabeth.

As if in that age of ruin none durst raise religious buildings, and as if the axe and hammer, so long taught to beat down, had forgot their former use to build up for pious intents.

At last comes William Lambert,³⁰³⁰See Camden’s Brit. in Kent, p. 327. Esquire, and first founds an hospital at Greenwich in Kent, calling that his society, (like politic Joab, after David’s name [2 Sam. xii. 28.],) the poor people of Queen Elizabeth. And after this worthy man followed many, that we may almost dazzle Papists’ eyes with the light of Protestant good works. The same Papists, perchance, may now conceive charity so disheartened in our days by these civil wars and the consequences thereof, that no Protestants hereafter should be so desperate as to adventure upon a public good deed. O for a Lambert junior (and I hope some of his lineage are left heirs to his lands and virtues), who shall break through the ranks of all discouragements; so that now English Protestants, being to begin a new score of good works, might from him date their epoch. Such a charity deserves to be knighted for the valour thereof.