for the further satisfaction of my reader I will look a little more particularly into the waies and pretensions of all parties and as brlefly too as may be The Quaker for I have both read their books and conversed frequently with their persons is in appearance very just and honest his open pretenses good and plausible and books spiritual enough to one of our vulgar readers unto whose judgment they be well proportioned for good words are put together to promote solid and sincere honesty and to evacuate that empty show of piety which has now generally taken place in the world in lieu of the real substance that is in a manner quite vanished out of our hearts and hands But these words are so strangly jumbled together that every line has good sens in it but all together none for as they carry no reference to any one supreme scope to which as the utmost object of the whole discours all those phrases may be applied so being well examined and compared together they will be found very frequently to gainsay one another and he that looks for connexion and correspondence either of sens or sentence will lose his labour I have never seen any thing that for the stile and context of the speech doth more nearly resemble Mahomets Alcoran than a good Quakers book for in both be handsom words som dreaming conceits interlarded with undeniable truths much imperious censur of all mankind that will not submit to that way endles tautologies and no connexion and it would even amaze a man to see how pathetically the good Quaker decries all mortal men and tramples them under his feet with pious words most uncouthly put together in a manner as far as I am able to imitate it to this purpos The Lord hath begun a good work upon earth and he will finish it men shall see it with their eyes and all darknes shall be confounded before his feet a little thing within thee shall lay thy shame open and strike thee hip and thigh his goings are mighty and nothing can resist the breath of his nostrils when he shall make the mountains to smoak and the hills to tremble before the arm of his power when he begins to make his Saints glorious he will do it all that has exalted it self shall fall root and branch and the proud cedar must down thou shalt see it in that day for it will come upon thee even as pangs upon a woman in travel Babylon shall fall and all the glory of men be laid in the dust when Christ shall reign in his little ones and they in him for there must be an end an end to adulteries and darknes an end to pride to tiranny to all the sons of men that the Lord may be all in all woe woe woe is it not told thee is not the truth preached is not the light already com and yet men hate it the sons of men hate it they persecute that light but light cannot be hurt it cannot be prevailed over they may show their spleen to the truth but all their spight it must end it must yield at last nothing is stronger than truth not wit not strength not policy not wealth not pride not falshood the horns of the beast must fall off as well the little as the great one when the beast is slain and cast out into the wildernes to the fouls of the air to be devoured by the beasts of the field does not the Presbyterian preach for hire does he not walk in black the colour of the whore does he not frequent steeplehouses or bellhouses built by Papists and prophaned with adulteries and fornications with idols does he not set open his wares in his shop commonly called a pulpet a popish name does he not court and cap and cringe for lucre filthy lucre according to men is there any power of godlines in him truth and the word of God does not consist in words it is not written in paper 't is here within thee hearken to it yield obedience there attend what it sayes there Protestant what is protestant a meer carnal idol a cheat abomination an imp of popery the eldest brat of the whore thou canst not thou canst not thou canst not stand thou art assuredly to fall before the arm of the lord which is bared against thee and all thy cheating lies shall be laid open in the dust for men to trample and go over and tread under their feet O popery idolatry sin lies thefts tyrannies wickedness darknes hearken unto me come to the light and heart it speak it will guide thee it will guide thee to the truth it is a sweet thing within thee it speaks comfort it makes thee see and hate all kind of corruption if thou wilt heed it and hearken to it and follow it it will make thee contemn thy self contemn all mortal men contemn pride and the glory of this world and all popish superstitions and all that exalts it self popes cardinals principalities steeplehouses to lye in the dirt and dust of the earth which will be sweeter to thee with that light within thee than the silks and gold and earthly pelf of this world ministery and magistracy and wordly power the two horns of the beast is invented only by Antichrist to oppress Christ the Pope is the old serpent the grand seducer he it is that shows the apple that is fair to the eye and sweet to the taste but poison in the stomach the Saints and little ones must rule and all iniquity shall be don away the light will dissolv all the beasts ten horns c. Well good neighbour it is enough When Christ comes we will worship him and beg to be admitted into his kingdom till then let us have peace which is I am sure some part of it We cannot answer you if that will satisfy you whom I know no answer will Every good man in the world wishes with you that all iniquity were done away and well may you I should think content your selves with them to wish it so to all and see it done in your own persons Why do you trouble the world with your useles clamours and put it so out of tune that Christ when he coms can find no quiet entertainment in the land for the wars and broils his great Saints have made in it If you talk a little longer of Christs coming and make way for him as the fanaticks did last January with bright steel armour and shining head pieces sharp cimiters pistols and harquebusses stoutly fighting and severely declaring against the whole earth whom they condemned to ruin we have reason to fear that the sirname of this your Christ will be Oliver and your golden dayes but the slaughter and bloudshed of your innocent neighbours If your meaning be good show it by your peaceable conversation and speak no more to us for we need it not and heed it as little but say your prayers in your closets and prepare your selves
vex one another unto the daily disquiet and overthrow of our Kingdom as also becaus I beleeve he would soon answer the doubt and by the test of this great oracle carry away the precedency from us all and we all found to have no more truth in us than we have conformity unto Roman-catholicks Wherefore gentlemen I shall never ingage my self in any of your feudes and I would to God none els would do it till you answer me to this my question which I make to you all in generall and to each party in particular An à vobis verbum Dei processit an ad vos solos pervenit did the Gospell first com from you or only to you If either tell me which and on what side it is and I shall be on that if neither I can be of no side to follow it as my guide for though each party may haply have in it some reliques of truth amongst other fals inventions and all truths are not utterly abolished on the sodain yet can no such party hold forth any doctrin I may safely build upon That person or that See or that congregation from whom the gospel came or those people at least unto whom it first came legally delivered and not extorted and totally accepted without diminishment commensuratively unto his mind who sent it these are the onely persons unto whom of divine right precedency so much belongs as all that will be of Christs mystical body not onely may safely but must universally follow them But where this body of men may be the Pope and Papists from whom and unto whom alone the gospel first came being by us concluded under errour is so obscure that I for my part having lost them cannot find out whom I may safely adhere unto in the opinions and practises of religion sith none of us in England besides them can according to this great oracle of St. Paul pretend any right to guide his neighbour in those wayes Wherfor it were good wisdom in my judgment to sheath both our swords and pens and be at peace till we can find out a party among us that can make good this canonical title of preheminence for she that can do it is the onely pure and mother Church whom all must hear and obey unto and all other factions that be unconformable unto that holy Church from whom or unto whom first the gospel came are little better perhaps then stark naught I cannot see then as yet why we should all of us Presbyterian Protestant and Independent inveigh so furiously either one against another within our selves or all of us against the Papist or why upon this account any one should be puft up against his neighbour or hate and prosecute him as an execrable thing but that we should rather study mutual comiseration charity and peace §. 4. Heats and resolution THere have ever been variety of opinions in the world and considering the diversity of our constitution and complexion will ever still be unto the end so long as we be left to our selves In the small knowledge we have of times past there is enough to certifie the division of mindes and opinions in all ages and places But it is to be noted that none of these ever submitted to another nor fell into unity by conviction of any one reason above the rest and yet doubtles there was ever som such reason extant But they rested notwithstanding at length like boisterous whirlwinds after some ages puffing one against another well broken tired and decaying for want of further matter but that which never fails is truth Nor do I find that they used in former times of old among the Pagans other weapons offensiv or defensiv in the heats of their opinion-wars but onely pen and speech Our Christians those huge eminent professours of humility peace and moderation are the onely hot-spur opiniasters and surely the sharpest darers and eagerest fighters for their self-wills and conceits that were ever yet brought upon this worlds amphitheater And as they show the greatest fury so do they exhibite the least reason of all controvertists upon earth For the spirit the light the Lord the word and such like motives of a new fansy what can these things signifie between men of the same profession that pretend all to the same things but onely this that the Papal chair being once removed every one may advance his own seat in the place for all are equally infallible equally resolute and unmoveable in their decrees Nor does any ever heed the invalidity of his motives not for the most part understand when he is confuted even by his own weapons so eager we are and withal impertinent and resolute In truth opinions and controversies once raised were never yet allaied by reason nor ever can be for the first founder and forger of the novelty being moved thereunto by passion and interest as in time it proves evident to the world put on a resolv never to yield whether he held forth a natural or supernatural light as a weapon of his warfar and therefor he will onely be tried by his own weapon and that too shall signify nothing but in his own hand which is a certain way of victory at least in the eyes of the vulgar whom he seeks to inveigle and consequently both of interest and glory to himself And let there be never so many opinions they all overcome How shall he be confuted that brings with himself I mean in appearance and his own pretens the Lord or light or word or spirit or tradition or reason with open defiance to the whole world as utterly devoid of all such helps which himself and he alone enjoyes in all abundance confute him that can Let truth and wisdom flow like streams from the lips of his opponent let all sort of rhetorick conspire to his satisfaction if he do not laugh at it as empty sounds and not the true word as flesh and not spirit as man and not the Lord as darknes and not light as folly and not reason as humane inventions and no divine tradition let me lose belief for ever And what end can there be made of such new started doubts or where lies the defect or reason of their indeterminables but only in the pride and obstinacy of the first prophet and his disciples who indeed are not such if they be not self-willed and self-conceited like himself And this may be the reason of that sage advice the Apostle gives to Titus Haereticum hominem post unam alteram correptionem devita c. An heretical man check him once or twice and then avoid him for he is utterly subverted and condemned in his own judgment As if he had said dispute not with him but check him if that will do no good avoid him for he is past hopes But how is such a one condemned in his own judgment and why should we therfor treat no further with him Namely becaus he knows aforehand in his own
body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
for when they had all under their feet that might any waies oppose or binder their design yet could they never bring to pass any of the spetious things they made pretens of the great welfar of our Kingdom settlement of a pure religion liberty of conscience and freedom of the subject unto all which their actions were so contrary all these twenty years together that man could not discern by their doings that they did so much as mean any such thing whether it were that they did indeed never sincerely intend or were not able to compas or by severall concurrencies of affairs were diverted and jusled from that end unto waies utterly opposite both to our good and their own too I was ever of opinion all the while that the account of Religion as the case stands needed not of all other things so highly to incens us one against another unto such injurious outrages as past amongst us and found in my heart several times to put pen to paper and utter my minde but I was retarded by the two reasons of my own small ability and my Countries indisposition at that time to such discours But now people seem more calmly disposed and my self somwhat bettered by reading more books of Quakers Anabaptists Presbyterians and by the society of these and severall others Wel-willers Seekers Atheists Philosophers The books of Roman Catholicks I had perused and digested a forehand our Protestant Religion I understood long ago being born and bred in that way So that an exact knowledg of all I am to speak together with my long observing experience will I hope somwhat supply my other wants One thing incourages me not a little to this enterprize which is that I have frequently observed that it is not alwaies a muchnes either of eloquence learning or wisdom that strikes a stroke in asswaging differences or makes a right understanding between parties but such a hidden caus somtims in the words and gestures of persons as we may rather call it chance than any thing else I have my self pacified neighbours even in their hottest dissentions when others of greater wisdom and acquaintance have prevailed less So that I have thereupon concluded that these kind of feudes against charity may have in them somwhat of the property of the tarantulaes stingings which be cured not by the best musick but the fittest Another thing I must adde that I never yet heard of any that so much as endeavoured to allay our religious distempers by the generall lights I go upon without which notwithstanding every one will remain so fixed in his own way that little good can be wrought as by daily experience we finde it true The Prince of all to picks in the alaying of these kind of combustions is that of Virgil Sed motos praestat componere fluctus Controversies be written on this side and that invective defiances made on all sides without end confutations of Sects bitter enough every where objections and replies endles some for Papists some against them some against our Protestants some for them some by Presbyterians some by Anabaptists some by Quakers against all some by all sorts against the Quakers But all these kind of disputes be so far from quenching that they adde still more fewel to the fire and make it both to flame more vehement and last longer and spread farther whiles every one remains so inveigled and addicted to his own way that he execrates all the rest and cannot let fall a good word for any or acknowledge a truth in them but Popery the devill of Popery we are so transported with the hatred of it that we could tear it in pieces with our teeth My dislike therfore of such mistakes and ungrounded rancour and the love I bear to a right understanding urge me to attempt what I see in this way no others go about a mitigation of groundles but dangerous animosities I had the very same good purpos when I wrote the Reclaimed Papist but Satan hindered me in that and I am resolved now once again for the good of my Countrey which I dearly love to try if I can compas it another way But I am finally inflamed to this work by a sight of his Majesties most gracious Speech together with the Lord Chancellors unto the two houses of Parliament upon their adjournment in September 1660. where one may evidently see our Sovereigns most earnest and even groaning desire of a moderate and prudent comportment in this Land one of us towards another according to the dictamen of our Christianity and right reason in these matters of Religion together with a promis of his utmost endeavours to our generall satisfaction if we in the interim could but have charity one towards another till he may understand how to please us all Could wisdom and goodnes it self desire ought of us that might either be more facil or rationall or more pleasing than that we should be good to our selves And who would not endeavour to his power what he sees so great a Prince desires as a thing necessary to the welfar of our Land which for want of this moderation hath been lately so miserably harassed and undone My Lord Chancellors words upon his Majesties suggestion are these There are two other particulars which I am commanded to mention which were both mentioned and commended unto you by his Majesty in his declaration from Breda the one for confirmation of sales or other recompens for purchases the other for the composing of those differences and distempers in Religion which have too much disturbed the peace of the Kingdom Two very weighty particulars c. For the first his Majesty hath not been without much thought c. the other of Religion is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and ciment to affection and brotherly kindnes and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and revenge And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question but the divine nature exceedingly abhorres somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as those who are in the wrong c. These be the learned Chancellors words set down more at large in the last § of my book so grave discreet and patheticall that if they were seriously pondered as they deserv might suffice to put us to a stand even in the highest carreer of our most uncharitable animosities upon Religions account How many waies does the honourable Oratour turn himself to move us to our own welfar how wisely does he select his to picks how sweetly unites how vigorously presses ab essentialibus ab effectibus à contrariis ab inconvenientibus à dissimilibus c. to this effect Religion is the ciment of affection must or can that be the ground of malice Surely that is an evil passion by what
and boisterous vulgar A compendious narration of the story and morallity of it so ordered unto solid practis that it were suffered to be used for nothing else either for disputes or jesting conceits kept our English Christian nation for a thousand years together so long as it was catholick in all unity and peace and rendered them fruitful in all good works whereas the whole and very text now in this last age put into vulgar hands together with a fore apprehension and belief of the unmeritoriousnes and unprofitablenes of good works in order to eternal life unto which forsooth faith onely suffices which is contrary to the very genius and end and purpose of Gods word and them that wrote it hath filled the land with so much wretchlesnes and divisions And who shall interpret the scripture to us to the end it may guide our thoughts without errour It self so som say but then if we may guess at the natur of it by the fruits of the interpretation we have from it what a Chaos of confusion would it be thought to be for such be the contradictory interpretations that are all said to come from it Shall the Church interpret it no this is Popish and what Church those in whose hands we found it or from whose hands we first had it if the former they may be as destitute of power to interpret as our selves if the other then must we return unto the obedience of the Roman church for all the world knows we received the gospel first from Rome Must neither interpret but onely the spirit and divine light within our selves this may be it must teach us to know all things but what is the thing shall teach us to know it how shall we be assured that it is a spirit or light divine if we mistake here our pretended light my prove an ignis fatuus and no less foolish the illumination by it If we do not know even our own soul and spirit within us what it is how it informs our bodie how it works in it all those several operations of thoughts and corporeal alterations or whence it comes or how it is annexed to us while it stayes why it departs or whither it goes as it is certain we do not how can we judg assuredly whence such or such a thought arises in it from God above or sensual causes tho it never so much pretend a divine mission and be transfigured into a shape angelical or that any spirit or light within us is truly divine and not phantastical Do not the corporeal spirits inflamed by often beating upon an object naturally hammer forth such odde phantosms in great abundance without either order or measure invested all of them in such shapes as the artificer forged himself without any other exteriour aid but objective representations which ofentimes so vigorously represent themselves that from the objects of thought they stand at length in place of the subject thinking If any one will not beleev me let him but take the pains to make a journey into Bedlam here in London Paris and other Cities and convers but a while with the mad men there and then he will soon finde it true There he shall meet with countesses captains bishops kings nor real as themselvs imagin but fantastick and whimsical ones nay some one there will pretend to be Christ himself another the Holy Ghost a third God the Father of all things and what not and the fansy too is so strong and prevalent that the whip may chance at length to beat it out but all the reasoning in the world shall not do it The second consideration to promote moderation and consequently to make way for a right understanding is the sad precipices men have run themselvs and others by their headines and temerarious obstinacy in their opinions and conceits even to the utter ruine and depopulation of flourishing kingdoms as ancient histories will copiously witness And if any say Alas what do you tell us of those men they were a self-deluded people Does not the world say so of you Oh but we know the contrary Just so said they O but we cannot be deceived the truth the word the Lord himself cannot lye heaven and earth may fail these cannot This was even their very song O then if it be so they were in the right too Then you are not for they were in many things of a contrary opinion to you all of them and som in all things Well well God knows his elect 'T is true but you know them not No not I why should I not except I be reprobate You may be so walk then in fear He that hath the light must he not needs see it If he have it near him he may so that he be not hood-winked or blinded with a prejudice and he may think too he sees it when he has it not I have often waked at midnight and thought my whole chamber enlightned but by and by perceived it was only the glimpses of some natural luminous spirits not in the chamber but under my own eye-lids which was a vanishing and false light and not at all in the place I took it to be You may as well say as much of the apostles and prophets themselves I may so and would do it without any fear at all if I had no other motives of respect to their words than I have to yours Com com if the truth be hid it is hid to them that be lost Be it so yet still the question will be whether I be lost or you whether you or all mankind beside The third consideration is the genuin and connaturall excellency of a good Christian man whether we follow reason or autority in deciphering it which consists not in finding new wayes to the reformation of other mens thoughts but putting in practise the old received well known dictates of sobriety justice and piety in our selvs with submission unto the direction of such as delivered them unto us from that one Lord we all worship Oh but men have swarved from those wayes Let them they shall bear their own burden do not you swarv and it shall be well with you themselvs and such as were set over them as I know you are not shall render an account for those lost sheep whiles you are safe and being innocent have no account to give either for your selvs or others O but the zeal of the Lords hous doth eat us up Good let not that zeal of yours eat the Lords hous up and all is well Away away we cannot abide bishops and priests and copes and surplices they are very beams in our wayes It is is a sign of a weak and ill-affected eye not to be able to look upon any thing You shall not be burdened with the wearing either of the vestments or titles and the meer seeing should not be methinks so troublesom And yet late experience hath made it evident whatsoever tendernes you may pretend that
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
the reason is very good for the true Church wherein Christ really resides is ever in a posture of quietness and defens But they that go out of her and set up new wayes of their own are ever in clamour and dissention which of them should do it best and the cry is heard aloud and without ceas Here Here. Christ is here saith the Protestant and not amongst the Papists nay quoth the Presbyterian by your favour he is Here nay then sayes the Anabaptist Here he is if you be at that quoth the Quaker you are all blinded men if any would find the true light com to us for here it is and no where but here But when all is done truth is not in division but unity not in sedition and clamour but meekness and peace If ten men stand gazing in a street and all agree that they see a thing there but disagree all in the description of it a stranger coming by will rather guess they are all mad than that they see any thing at all One thing I am sure of if all men would be humble minded and sober and cast out of their hearts the great prejudice they have taken up against one another they would see the better for it To conclude this subject for I would say no more than what may help to lop the vain and superfluous excrescencies of faction and dissentions about religion which perhaps none of us do rightly understand and would be loth to cut the tree it self to the quick it may appear sufficiently by what I have said and yet far more if we joyn our own experimental knowledg and ratiocination of further things which I do purposely omit that God is in himself an unsearchable abyss and his essence and counsels past finding out nay he is the great primo genial and father-abyss of all others not to be approached by angels or men but according to such few exteriour conceptions himself hath either revealed or imprinted in them which be far from reaching home either to his counsels or proper essence And who hath been his mate or counsellour that he should tell us news of him never heard before If any news there be of him it is surely to be had from Christ whom we beleev to be his very substantial word and the splendour of his glory and if Christ hath left any secrets of him to be revealed unto mankind we must have them from his Church which is the pillar and foundation and treasury of all his truth and if any Church is to be consulted I should think it should be that and only that which by an uninterrupted succession hath descended from himself which is that very same that first brought Christian religion into this land which without all controversy is the Catholick now by contempt surnamed Papist and if any one be otherwise minded etiam hoc Deus ipsi revelabit In the mean time let us be peaceable and sober §. 7. Obscurity of nature THe second abyss is that of Gods works and the whole creation which all men that have considered it aright find unfoardable and if any have not let me crave his company a while but in a slight survay of this wondrous fabrick and then tell me what he thinks When we confider those myriads of intelligencies angels and spirits and the whole intellectual world the first exteriour issue of divine brightness we are not then much nearer apprehension of any thing in particular than in the first abyss what they are either for substance or place or operation or extent of presence or knowledg or power or motion or order or any thing els in particular In the visible world we begin a little to find our feeling and know at least where we are but not much more Here we see a wonderful face of things but what els what is the basis on which all the frame stands and how is it setled upon it in its various and stupendious motions the order of things little or nothing appears their essences altogether unknown their properties dependances and mutual connexion obscure their limits and vigour and duration and influences doubtful their motions uncertain the mode method and chain of operation utterly hidden And what is it then we know wherein consists the excellency of our science that we should boast our selves and contemn the world and what are we able to determin in the truth of these things without uncertainty and errour This our ignorance of nature is sufficiently insinuated and evinced in that solid piece of moral-divinity in sacred writ commonly called Job from ch 38 to 42. It were worth my pains to insert here all that eloquent discours But becaus the Bible is in every mans hand he that pleases may read it there at leasure And although Doctor Brown say in his Vulgar errours as I remember that the difficulties of nature there propounded will now adayes be easily answered by every puny scholler yet those words of his be unwary both becaus those intricacies of the creation are there propounded by no less a person than almighty God as insoluble and not to be dived into by man as also becaus the Doctour if he consider right cannot but know that he that were able to give a full satsifactory reason even of the smaller things in nature as the winde or rain would be able to tell what weather it would be or what wind would blow every day in the year in any part of the earth until the worlds end so sure and fixed is the whole frame of nature But such kind of puny schollers the world never yet saw And although man sees and knows enough in nature to make him admire and adore the Authour yet not to contend with him in questions and replies about it The whole world is an immens intangled gordian knot which the wisest of men could never yet untye or discern the intermingled series of the many voluminous causes concatenated therein Even the progress of a poor plant from its seed to its decay who can declare or conceiv it so many several seeds both of plants and animals how do they shoot forth so orderly into their parts and organs peculiar each one to themselvs where lies that celestial particle in the little seminal origen which is the spring of life and motion in every thing In the first primogenial sours how is distinguished either kind from kinde or part from part in the same kind and which is that part that is to run forth into the head and which into the arms and how is it done I see wheat and barley elm and oak hors and man to shoot up constantly each one from their own seed in their own proper and peculiar mode and method and perhaps an angel or intelligence may distinctly see the reason of all in the very seeds for som reason is certainly there to be seen but what man can do it how comes such variety of bulk parts odour and colour unto
And if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be seasoned Nor can we be ignorant that this Episcopacy-power was set up in England many years after Reformation-ingress by the ambitious policy of som men who falling from their former humility-spirit set up that chair of a State-spirituall for themselves which when another sate in it they used all kind of endeavour force and power to throw it down Can prelate-affecters deny that Episcopacy-power was by the first and purest reformation-light utterly subverted If you know it not the smallnes of your judgment will comdemn you if you know it and do the contrary you are condemned in your own judgment and if the Reformation was impure in this then was Protestant Reformation corrupt both in its first birth and the most glorious of all its enterprises wherein our consciences were withdrawn from the tyrant-yoaks of inveigling men unto the sweet influences of Christ who as he is the great pastour of souls so he is sure not to mislead his flock by any such passions as do frequenty domineer in man when he is once set over his fellow servants pride ignorance self-will and interest And if we be once brought again to the same ancient servil yoak of conscience-tyranny to receive our light and influences from men as before we did under Popery why may we not by the same strong tide of an irresistable self-leading power be driven uncontroulably to the same or greater errours Except you will say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a surer and more unerring guide than the Romish byshop both of them I am sure be men and equally fallible who standing either of them betwixt us and home may by their usurped power over consciences which be only subject to the invisible Lord of truth lead us again either into our ancient or some new invented errour and if they impose the yoak who can resist them But the Lord of truth cannot lye and the beams of his light falling immediately upon his peace-messengers as once upon the apostles in cloven tongues of fire untainted with the interposition of any intervening obstacle must needs be both clear and true I will teach you all things saith he to his apostles he said not that one of them should teach another nor did those cloven tongues descend first from Christ upon Peter from Peter to Andrew from Andrew to John and so forward in an hierarchical line which Papists imagine in their Church but from Christ alone immediately upon them all Nor can you move us at all by telling us as you do of ancient tradition for Episcopacy-power even from Christ time unto this present age sith all those times and places are concluded by the pious Reformation under popish darknes which began even in Pauls time when the mystery of iniquity even this mystery of papall tiranny began to work and so overwhelmed the whole earth till at length the Lord was pleased by the foolishnes of preaching to enlighten those little ones who were predestined to beleev a truth aforetime hidden to all the sons of men Did we not all appeal from such popish traditions to the oracle to the gospel to the word of God and to the truth that cannot lye And what other instrument did we make use of to the abolishing of that human supremacy over mens souls which now again by erroneous tradition you would contrary to your own principles obtrude upon us than that very word and oracle And the gospel which as it is now by Reformation-purity put into every mans hand so is every man the ministers successors to the apostles by the help of Christs light which by frequent prayer they unite to themselvs the people by light they receiv from gospel-ministers to interpret and understand it is totally with us and for us Look into the gospel of Matthew c. Hic subauditur longus textuum catalogus ab initio ad finem Biblii contra episcopatum If you reply that we must for the sense of all these places have recours unto the Church what Church do you mean yours out of which you say we are fallen or the popish Church which both you and we deserted Take which you will for the same reasons and gospel-verities equally reject them both and if we must hearken to your Church out of which you say we are fallen why then did not you obey that Church out of which you sell your selves if that were in errour and therefore to be deserted yours is in no better condition but the invisible congregation of the faithfull which in our first reformation we took to be the Church can never fail And if you begin now to take the Church in a popish sense for any hierarchicall prelacy you do at once condemn your selves both of inconstancy and dissimulation and also of violation of gospell and rebellion against that visible Church our forefathers found themselves in unto which it seems now by this tenour of your speech they were bound by their Christianity to obey Scripture autority you have none for you nay it is all against you human words and practises being now rid by Christ of all those servil yoaks we valiew not and the true light of purest Reformation which you have deserted sith it is with us as at the beginning we must not forfeit nor do any thing may obstruct the ingoings and out-goings of little Christ within us Whiles the Presbyterian is hotly busied in this his plea against the Prelate-Protestant the Independent touches his elbow and advises him to bethink himself least with the same weapon he wound his adversary and kill himself For if such reasonings saith he be of value what will then becom of the clerical Presbyterian black coat which being derived from popery finds no more grounds in scripture than episcopacy hath Are not all men equally subject to Christ and capable alike of his divine influences and so indeed it is said of the times of Christianity And they shall be all taught of God How then com other teachers to intrude betwixt us and God to obstruct and taint and variously infect his light those upon whom the Holy Ghost descended were all lay men as we be and som of them women too But as soon as the Presbyterian turning upon him called him fanatick the protestant cried In neither barrel better herring ye are both so It was presently replied by them both when did the spirit leav us to speak unto you by what light or scripture can you make that good you that are blinded in your own errours The Catholick coming by When theeves fall out quoth he honest men may hope to come to their own goods again §. 14. Protestant pro and con WHat advantage then can the pious Quaker have against the zealous Presbyterian or both of them against the honest Protestant whiles all of them find words enough out of scripture and reasons thence deduced to throw at one another and each side is both
time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
witty jest and jeer and so having given it a flap with a fox tail they pass on soberly to other matters in hand as is commonly done in the pulpits of witty preachers or if they handle it more seriously they do either for their own advantage mistake the doctrin or the proofs they bring against it whether through fraud or ignorance 't is hard to say and the foundations of catholick religion which be tradition and scripture they do so variously expound in severall times and places that one text shall have twenty several interpretations which if they be not catholick pass all for good here and at one time an autority of a father or councel shall be accepted and diversly interpreted in another time and place quite rejected now one piece of catholick doctrine shall be vehemently cryed down and at another time taken up again and maintained and at one and the same time in several parts of the world twenty points for example of catholick faith shall all of them be somewhere received and somewhere rejected amongst Protestants for they being still their own maisters may choos and throw away what they pleas and as long as they list without controul wheras the Romans keeping still one and the same treasury of religion and faith afford matter for them all either to take or leave either to approve or laugh at as they lâ—st as a well furnished table affords wanton children both what they may feed upon themselves and what being full they may spoil and play with and cast to the dogs §. 15. Scripture ANd whence com all these divisions only from this that every man hath a reason an interpretation a light a spirit of his own by which the bible which is now in all mens hands is made to speak what we pleas and our thoughts and tongues are our own what lord shall us controul This is a sad case while all of us upon those only motives which all men may take up at any time to abuse his innocent neighbour proceed to mutual hostility without end The very books that have been written against Roman catholick this last hundred years as they be furious and virulent so be they also so many and various that they would if they were all brought together fill up the Tower of London and by them have people been inflamed to such a height against the Romans that their bodies dignities honours fame houses and goods have been ineffably harrassed to this day And yet no body can say what ill that religion ever did in the world until Henry the eights dayes when it was first rejected and persecuted and when we have laid them in the dust we fly upon one another and pull and tear upon the same motiv all that stands in our light Reflect countrimen upon your selves shall we continue in a contest that can never possibly be ended and being prosecuted to the utmost must needs infer a general ruin upon all for whatsoever we say against any one may be said by any other against our selves and proved by the same argument and the same thing may be done to us upon the same account we do it to another All appellation to a visible judg is by anticatholicks jointly excluded and to the Roman catholick with whom unity hath ever dwelt we will not return nor can it be yet expected for the general disrepute unto that way hath so filled our ears and hearts that hating the very name of Papist we have not power to consider soberly what their religion may be Nay we are verily perswaded even from our nurses milk that Protestants are the only professors and Papists enemies to the gospel although to all the world besides the gospel is well enough known to be the Roman catholicks own and sole religion by which they walked and lived here in England many hundred years unto a fruitfulnes of all good works before Protestancy appeared and we pretend to fight against them only for the gospel and with the gospel whiles they forsooth are beleeved to have nothing at all to defend themselvs but a little traditional trumpery of mans inventions with a greater heap of vices of their own And upon this account proceed all our books that are written against Papists and popery in effect like unto that picture that was carried not long ago up and down the Protestant world wherein was drawn a fair ballance as a type of the two religions in whose left hand scale hanged beads girdles cardinals caps monks hoods fryars cowles disciplines crosses to signifie Popery in the other a fair great Bible to signifie Protestancy which hanging upon the ground quite weighed up the other scale into the air as light as very vanity And so credulous is the generallity of mankind that by such toies as these we are carried away unto not onely a dislike but even the highest detestation and contempt of a sacred religion without further examination But what do I speak of the generallity of the vulgar Even our sober and most judicious men who in other things speak and think like oracles in this busines of popery are not abashed to speak like children that talk of hobgoblings in the dark so prevalent is a prejudice brought upon us by the virulent impression of often iterated calumnies Nor are we able by the restraint of this great prejudice either to read the books or ponder seriously the reasons of our catholick neighbours for their faith Yea I have heard som Protestants in other things most wise and judicious to say openly that as for Papists he loved their persons but their religion he hated in his heart the reason is clear he knew the one and not the other And as we do all of us by this old imbibed prejudice detest Popery though we know not what it is so by any new-received dislike when we have once bodied with any one faction we revile all the rest and none will yield to another although in all reason that religion that hath precedency of time with all the other helps any juniour way can pretend unto might one would think have so much if not precedency yet equallity of respect as not to be by a way that is new in the world so bitterly reviled especially when all that venemous bitterness which by any junior sect is cast upon his foregoer may and is as heavily thrown upon himself by his successour But thus rancour and malice spreads abroad in our hearts and whole kingdom against his rule and doubtles to his great displeasure who carefully obliged us to the contrary rules of love and which is to be lamented the first sours and origin of all these defamations is the Pulpit where both by word and example we are taught to defame and hate even those we do not know We may fear som great curs lies upon our poor nation for these our unnatural disorders even so far as to blind us that we cannot see the truth Unto his dogs set upon
have both by their example and doctrin endeavoured incessantly the eradication of the sinful weed But happy is that man in whom the three fold members of concupiscence are become through his care and industry over himself either quite dead or at least expiring for he only lives and lives like a man and is free The other noises which is the subject and matter of this my present consideration are the many clashing opinions about God and religion an empty aiery business as I think ere long will appear a ghostly fight a skirmish of shadowes or horsmen in the clouds and yet 't is prodigious to speak what real heart-burnings what deadly rancour it breeds in mens minds and what a deluge of mischief it causes in the world It is a thing I have often and deeply considered not without horrour and commiseration The result of my thoughts herein is thus much surely there is somthing invisible over man and stronger and more politick than he that does this contumely to mankinde that casts in these apples of contention amongst us that hisses us to war and battle as waggish boyes do dogs in the street which being once set on tear and devour one another upon no other cause or motive than that impulsion For how els could it possibly come to pass that a company of men altogether unknown to one another in several places grabs constitutions employments ages and educations should all of a suddain no man knows how rise up conspire and jump together in a conceit before unthought of and to all other men besides themselves improbable so unanimous and vigorously as to put all to a hazard for its defence and propagation will or nill the whole world that may dislike it with such heat of earnestnes as is never seen to appear in any known good thing Can this be any thing els than an impression made upon us by som invisible substance or doemon that by this aiery phantosme inflames us one against another unto our utter worrying and devouring unto whom our deadly feuds arising thereon may haply give no less content and sport then dogs fighting in the streets to wanton boys that set them on This we may suspect at least and if we do methinks it should make our pens and weapons drawn for the maintenance of our fansy fall out of our unwary hands And is it otherwayes possible that any faction in the world should not have the capacity to think that as they judge and condemn all the world besides themselvs so also by all the rest of the world are they themselvs judged and can they not see it as ridiculous in themselvs to judg as in another whose judgment they contemn and as easily suspect themselvs as they do censoriously disesteem their neighbour whom they cannot but acknowledg to be in other things their equalls ther elders oftentimes in age superiour haply in naturall parts more eminent in birth and breeding equally subjects of our common creatour and haply in all civil respects their betters Is not this prodigious and what can it rationally be attributed unto but some maligne substance invisible that makes a fool of mankind Are not men blasted Are they not inchanted I should think nothing els can be said for it and therfore they run and fling and turn up tail and snuff the wind and hoof-beat the earth and bellow to battle as if they were stung with gad flies But let us use moderation God dwells not in a whirlwind If every one would but once begin to suspect himself as in all prudence he may the business were half ended and a right under standing very forwardly on §. 3. Nullity of title FOr the things of this world why men should contend so much the reason is enough apparent we live and our being is supported by them Nor is it an easie thing especially if men do not apply themselves unto very serious consideration to distinguish between things necessary and superfluous or to know when we have enough But that we should struggle so much about opinions even unto blood and utter ruin sometimes of whole Kingdoms except it be don in order to the things of this world wherin we labour by such means for a greater share than otherwis would happen to us or that the wicked fiend is in it no satisfactory reason in the world can be given For tell me I pray you Sir that struggle so much and so earnestly for the propagation of your opinion What good is it that I should think as you do Is it for your own interest or for mine If your own I am not bound to serv your fansy or inslave my understanding to your pleasur if for mine I thank you for your good will but refuse your service Although you may have a thought concerning God or natur perhaps better than mine if I have any or worth my hearing if I have none yet can you not rationally think either that you are bound in justice to communicate it unto me or I to embrace it There is nothing but charity to urge you which is neither obstinate nor seditious nor doth any law of justice oblige me to accept of your favour if you offer it sith every one stands as free in himself either to refuse or accept a good turn proffered by another as that other to present it Will you urg and force me to be of your opinion which perhaps I look upon either as of no concernment at all to me or false And who made me your vassail So great a vassail as to command my thoughts and those too which are versed not about your self or me but our common creatour and his works and providence which if they be rectified in you by any light to me unknown enjoy your own happines I envy it not leav me to my self as I do you and do not importunely against the very laws of right reason obtrude a courtesy upon him that likes it not nor thinks it so Had you any true charity for me you would not disturb my peace which even in your own judgment is one of our greatest goods for an opinion of yours which you cannot but see to be in my judgment of so little valiew Let it be what it will a forced favour is an affront force but a dog to eat or drink when he has not a list to it and see but how that very poor beast will take it Are not you and I worms of the earth both of us and equally subject unto that sours of light which is above Why then should you go about to perswade me to take my influence from your body which is of no less opacity than mine own You are inlightened you say and have received a truth which I want First you are assured no more than my self that it is a truth and although you may think you be one mans word is in this thing I am sure as good as anothers and if you have received it and it be such
can you not be happy alone as well in this as other things or permit your neighbour to walk as well naked of truth as clothes or other necessaries which you will never thrust upon any although your self never so much abound and he want if I do want your truth my want if it be any harm it is mine own not yours But let it be a truth received is therfore the whole cours and order of the Univers changed Why may not I have that light if any such thing it be from that generall superiour caus whence you received it it cannot be wrought in me without him why may it not by him without you as well in me as your self How are you become of a sudden unto me a star of influence who was the other day a portion of the same earth and darkness with me But now you begin to be angry that I will not admit of the happines you bring me and are you so indeed then by your favour your proposition was made to me not from charity but pride not unto my good but slavery becaus I am really perhaps above you ther must be a trick invented to bring me under in conceit and to captivate his understanding who is in power and ability your betters thus shall you get a dignity by the shadow of your fansy where you could not appear by any demonstration of reall and apparent worth But now grown more wroth you call me bruit beast and dog and imp of darknes and so you break forth out of the cloud you walked in and the sheepskin broken the true face of a wolf is seen it was pride not charity that spake in you you offered to give to me in hopes I should thereupon fall down and worship upon my refusal you claw me with your curses a sign that your proposall was not for my good but your own to work a glory not in me but over me and to boast your self in my conquest If you had been born my Prince you could not have commanded my thoughts do you think by commanding them to make your self one Content your self Puffing gusts of new fansies under what pretens soever they com new reason new light or new revelation in any particular person are for their very violence to be suspected When I hear any to censur all mankind and to disparage all judgments but his own I begin then to think worse of his than all others for true knowledg walks not with universall contempt If the way be indeed of God peace and meeknes will accompany it at least in the first teacher God resides not in tempests nor does even he himself force mans will The very Gospel and volum of our Christianity was not thrust upon us but gently put into our hands upon our own good liking by perswasion of miracles and words of peace I suppose we are severed you and I as well in soul as body nor is my soul any more than body any part of you how comes it then that being so carles of my body which you do see you are so zealous of my soul you see not You are no more to answer for me herafter in another life than you eat and drink for me in this nor partake there more than here either of my weal or woe But your charity urges you forsooth for my future good and how coms it then so dead and senceles of my present There be many waies of help you might afford me in this life in order to my welfar in it if you heed me not in all these distresses which you see and I feel what esteem can I have of your pretended wellwishes in a state imaginary abroad for charity if it be true begins at home I have reason to think that God is as good to me as he is to you and will afford me as many helps of light and reason as another if not he hath left me at least in my own power to choos my guide which shall be such a one as I shall judg aforehand to be wiser than my self All vassailage is against natur and when any man enters upon it on his own accord it is upon some hopes of a foredeemed greater good than without it he could have had but it cannot be so thought without an imagined precedency in the guide we fix upon Now there is no captivity more eminent than that of the understanding which therfore is of all others to be most spontaneous and rationall and without either temerity or force but it is rashnes in me and not reason to trust my self to the conduct of a man I know to be as ignorant as my self and destitute of all autority over me in those affaires without either conviction of reason or motive of miracle and for him to raise any mutiny against me thereby to compell to the obeysance of his thoughts whom he hath no reasons to perswade is a force too too bruitish and contrary to all lawes both of God and reason I may indeed if I pleas submit to your direction but can I do this in reallity and earnest unles beforehand I conceiv more of wisdom to be resident in you than I find to be in my self Can any Pilgrim yield up himself to the guidance of a person he has no reason to think more skilfull in the waies than himself is and if upon his refusall to follow that person should offer violence and either drag him by force into the way himself showes or offer to cut his throat for refusall would you esteem such a directour to be the Pilgrims friend or a thief and robber Becaus you cannot maister my thoughts and make me a vassail to your conceits which I am so far from judging rationall that I cannot but think them both impious and senceles you will therfore take upon you to maister my estate and life and perhaps only to effect this you pretend the other what is this but robbery and murder commenced upon a pretens of charity There be som theeves in the world that will not assault a traveller till they have offered him as a preparative to their convenience the sight of som curiosity to stand and demurr upon I heard once of an honest traveller who in this manner gave thirty peeces of gold for a hare offered him in his journey by a seeming countrey man to buy for his supper choosing rather against his judgment to make such a market than to dye for his obstinacy but is this a good and commendable violence Shall we prais these actions or do like to them God forbid You look upon me as an accursed thing without the beleef and light you walk by And why so What if I think the like of you for that very fals light and beleef you boast of If I do it not learn vertue of me that so you may the sooner perswade me to com to you for knowledg And how coms it to pass you do so look upon me Are you a