religion hath parts which belong to eternity, and parts which pertain to time: and if we did but know the virtue of silence and slowness to speak, commended by St. James, our controversies of themselves would close up and grow together:* but most especially, if we would leave the over-weaning and turbulent humours of these times, and revive the blessed proceeding of the Apostles and Fathers of the primitive church, which was, in the like and greater cases, not to enter into assertions and positions, but to deliver counsels and advice, we should need no other remedy at all: “si eadem consulis, frater, quæ affirmas, consulenti debetur reverentia, cum non debeatur fides affirmanti;" brother, if that which you set down as an assertion, you would deliver by way of advice, there were reverence due to your counsel, whereas faith is not due to your affirmation. St. Paul was content to speak thus, "Ego non Dominus," I, and not the Lord: “Et secundum consilium meum," according to my counsel. But now men do too lightly say, “Non ego, sed Dominus,” not I, but the Lord: yea, and bind it with an heavy denunciation of his judgments, to terrify the simple, which have not sufficiently understood out of Solomon, that "the causeless curse shall not come." . It is hard in all causes, but espe cially in religion, when voices shall be numbered and not weighed. "Equidem," saith a wise father, "ut vere quod res est scribam, prorsus decrevi fugere omnem conventum "The itch of disputing will prove the scab of the church." Sir Henry Wotton. He directed in his will that this sentence should be engraven on his tombstone: "Hic jacet hujus sententiæ primus author: DISPUTANDI PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES Nomlu alias quære." † Old John Selden had no faith in the establishment of a creed by the majority in theological councils. He said that it was as if they were to claim that the odd vote was the Holy Ghost. Sir John Harrington has preserved an interview between Dr. John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and one whom Sydney episcoporum; nullius enim concillii bonum exitum unquam vidi; concilia enim non minuunt mala, sed augent potius:” To say the truth, I am utterly determined never to come to any council of bishops: for I never yet saw good end of any council; for councils abate not ill things, but rather increase them. Which is to be understood not so much of general councils, as of synods, gathered for the ordinary government of the church. . . The fourth point wholly pertaineth to them which impugn the present ecclesiastical government. They have impropriated unto themselves the names of zealous, sincere, and reformed; as if all others were cold minglers of holy things and profane, and friends of abuses. Yea, be a man endued with great virtues, and fruitful in good works; yet if he concur not with them, they term him, in derogation, a civil and moral man,* and compare him to Socrates, or some heathen philosopher: whereas the wisdom of the Scriptures teacheth us otherwise; namely, to judge Smith would call a consecrated cobbler. The bishop conferred with him, in hope to convert him; and first my lord alleged for the authority of the church, St. Augustin. The shoemaker answered, "Augustin was but a man." He (Still) produced, for antiquitie of bishops, the fathers of the council of Nice. He answered, "They were also but men, and might erre." "Why, then," said the bishop, "thou art but a man and maist and doest erre." "No, sir," saith he, "the spirit beareth witness to my spirit; I am the chyld of God." "Alas," saith the bishop, "thy blynde spirit will lead thee to the gallows." "If I die," saith he, "in the Lord's cause, I shall be a martyr." "This man," saith he, "is not a sheepe strayed from the fold, for such may be brought in againe on the sheapheard's shoulders; but this is like a wild bucke broken out of a parke, whose pale is thrown down, and flies the farder off, the more he is hunted."-Nuga Antiquæ. * Butler satirizes this class of bigots who substituted imaginary or hypocritical inward workings of the spirit for the letting one's “light shine before men,” — for practical Christianity. They laid so much stress on this "inward grace," that they would not credit with being a religious man the benevolent labourer and denominate men religious according to their works of the second table; because they of the first are often counterfeit, and practiced in hypocrisy. . . St. James saith, “This is true religion to visit the fatherless and the widows.” God grant that we may contend with other churches, as the vine with the olive, which of us shall bear the first fruit; and not as the briar with the thistle, which of us is most unprofitable.* in the vineyard, who could not or would not cry aloud, "The spirit beareth witness to my spirit :”. 'Cause grace and virtue are within And therefore no true saint allows They should be suffered to espouse. -Hudibras. Part III., Canto 1., l. 1293. 66 * The true spirit of religion is exhibited by Dr. Tillotson in his letter to the Earl of Mulgrave, Oct. 23, 1679: I am, and always was, more concerned that your lordship should continue a virtuous and good man, than become a Protestant; being assured that the ignorance and errors of men's understandings will find a much easier forgiveness with God than the faults of their wills. I am sure you cannot more effectually condemn your own act, than by being a worse man after your profession of having embraced a better religion." Electrotyped by JAMES S. ADAMS, 299 Washington St., Boston. |