[Sidenote: No whit addicted to covetousness.]
Covetousness He perfectly hated, being a single man and having no project to raise a name or Family, he was the better enabled for publick performances, having both a _price in his hand_, and an _heart_ also to dispose thereof for the general good. S't _Johns_ in _Oxford_, wherein he was bred, was so beautified, enlarged, and enriched by him, that strangers at the first sight knew it not, yea, it scarce knoweth it self, so altered to the better from its former condition. Insomuch that almost it deserveth the name of _Canterbury-Colledge_, as well as that which _Simon Islip_ founded, and since hath lost its name, united to _Christ-Church_. More buildings he intended, (had not the stroke of one _Axe_ hindred the working of many _hammers_) chiefly on Churches, whereof the following passage may not impertinently be inserted.
[Sidenote: The grand causer of the repairing of Churches.]
It happened that a _Visitation_ was kept at S't _Peters_ in _Corn-hill_, for the Clergy of _London_. The Preacher discoursing of the painfulness of the Ministerial Function, proved it from the Greek deduction of [Greek: Diakonos] or Deacon, so called from [Greek: konis] _dust_, because he must _laborare in arena in pulvere_, _work in the dust_, doe hard service in hot weather. Sermon ended, Bishop _Laud_ proceeded to his charge to the Clergy, and observing the Church ill repaired without, and slovenly kept within, _I am sorry_ (said He) _to meet here with so true an Etymologie of Diaconus, for here is both dust and dirt too, for a Deacon (or Priest either) to work in. Yea it is dust of the worst kind, caused from the mines of this ancient house of God, so that it pittieth his[1] servants to see her in the dust_. Hence he took occasion to press the repairing of that, and other decaied places of divine worship, so that from this day we may date the general mending, beautifying and adorning of all English Churches, some to decency, some to magnificence, and some (if all complaints were true) to superstition.
But the Church of S't Pauls, (the only Cathedral in Christendom dedicated to that _Apostle_) was the master: piece of his performances. We know what[2] one Satyrically said of him, that _he pluckt down Puritans, and Property, to build up Pauls and Prerogative_. But let unpartial Judges behold how he left, and remember how he found that ruinous fabrick, and they must conclude that (though intending more) he effected much in that great designe. He communicated his project to some private persons, of taking down the _great Tower_ in the middle, to the _Spurrs_, and rebuild it in the same fashion, (but some yards higher) as before. He meant to hang as great and tuneable a ring of Bels, as any in the world, whose sound advantaged with their height and vicinity of the _Thames_, must needs be loud and melodious. But now he is turned to his dust, and all _his thoughts have perished_, yea that Church, formerly approached with due reverence, is now entred with just fear, of falling on those under it, and is so far from having its old decays repaired, that it is daily decayed in its new reparations.