Perfection and Peace, Title page – Dedication
PERFECTION AND PEACE:
Delivered in a SERMON By THO. FVLLER B. D.
LONDON Printed by Roger Norton for Iohn Williams at the Crown in S. Pauls Church-yard, 1653.
TO The Honoble and truly Religious GEORGE BERKELEY Sole Son and Heir to the Right Honourable GEORGE Lord BERKELEY, &c.
SIR,
WHen I look on the Crest of your ancient Arms, (A Mitre powdered Wth Crosses) I read therein an abridgment of the Devotion of those darker dayes: the Mitre shewing your Ancestors actions in Peace; the Cross, their atchievements in the Holy War: the Mitre, their doings at home; the Cross, their darings abroad.
Yea I fancie to my self each ancient Lord Berkly, like one of the Israelites at the walling of Jerusalem, Neh. 4. 17. With a Trowel in one hand, and a Sword in the other. We alwayes find him either fighting or founding, either in a Battel or at the building of some Religious Fabrick, as (besides others) the intire Abbey at Bristol, (afterwards converted into a Cathedral) was solely founded by one of that Family.
This was the Devotion of those dayes, wherein the world knew no better, and scarce any other. Since the Reformation, your Noble House hath not had less heat for having more light. Your Charity hath not been extinguished, but regulated, not drained dry, but derived in righter channels; and flowing with a clearer stream free from the mud of superstition.
As for your particular, that your ancient Crest is worthily born by you, the Mitre speaking you a Patron of Learning; the Crosses, a Practicer of Religion. Qualities which encouraged me to present this small Treatise unto you.
Acceptance is more then it can expect, pardon being as much as it doth deserve, being so long in coming, so short when come. But because it had its first Being by your Command, it hopes to have its wellbeing by your Countenance.
Should I desire so many Lords of your Family hereafter, as heretofore have flourished in a direct line, by desiring a particular Happiness to your House, I should wish a general mischief to mankind; that men should live so many years in sin & sorrow before the coming of the necessary and comfortable day of Judgment. My prayer therefore shall be, That the lustre of your House may continue with the lasting of the World, (so long as God will permit the badness thereof) in that honourable Equipage of your Ancestors: May Perfection here, and Peace hereafter light on you, your vertuous Lady, and hopeful issue; which is the daily desire of
Your Honours most bounden Servant THO. FULLER.