IV. As there were many reformers, so likewise there were many reformations; every country proceeding in a particular way and method, according as their national interest, together with their constitution and clime inclined them; some angrily, and with extremity; others calmly, and with mediocrity; not rending, but easily dividing the community, and leaving an honest possibility of a reconciliation; which though peaceable spirits do desire, and may conceive that revolution of time and the mercies of God may effect, yet that judgment that shall consider the present antipathies between the two extremes, their contrarieties in condition, affection, and opinion, may with the same hopes expect an union in the poles of heaven. V. But to difference myself nearer, and draw into a lesser circle: there is no church, whose every part so squares unto my conscience; whose articles, constitutions, and customs, seem so consonant unto reason, and as it were framed to my particular devotion, as this whereof I hold my belief, the church of England, to whose faith I am a sworn subject; and therefore in a double obligation subscribe unto her articles, and endeavour to observe her constitutions: whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe according to the rules of my private reason, or the humour and fashion of my devotion; neither believing this, because Luther affirmed it, nor disapproving that, because Calvin hath disavouched it. I condemn not all things in the council of Trent, nor approve all in the synod of Dort. In brief, where the Scripture is silent, the church is my text; where that speaks, 'tis but my comment: where there is a joint silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason. It is an unjust scandal of our adversaries, and a gross error in ourselves, to compute the nativity of our religion from Henry the Eighth', who, though he rejected the Pope, refused not the faith of Rome, and effected no more than what his own predecessors desired and assayed in ages past, and was conceived the state of Venice would have attempted in our days. It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular scurrilites and opprobrious scoffs of the bishop of Rome, to whom as a temporal prince, we owe the duty of good lan 7 So much Buchanan in his own life written by himself testifieth, who, speaking of his coming into England about the latter end of that king's time, saith, sed ibi tum omnia adeo erant incerta, ut eodem die, ac eodem igne (very strange !) utriusque factionis homines cremarentur: Henrico 8, jam seniore suæ magis securitati quam religionis puritati intento. And for the confirmation of this assertion of the author, vide Stat. 31, H. 8, cap. 14. 8 This expectation was in the time of pope Paul the Fifth, who, by excommunicating that republic, gave occasion to the senate to banish all such of the clergy as would not by reason of the pope's command administer the sacraments; and upon that account the Jesuits were cast out, and never since received into that state. guage. I confess there is a cause of passion between us by his sentence I stand excommunicated, heretic is the best language he affords me; yet can no ear witness, I ever returned him the name of Antichrist, man of sin, or whore of Babylon. It is the method of charity to suffer without reaction: those usual satires and invectives of the pulpit may perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar, whose ears are opener to rhetoric than logic; yet do they in no wise confirm the faith of wiser believers, who know that a good cause needs not to be pardoned by passion, but can sustain itself upon a temperate dispute. VI. I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that, from which within a few days I should dissent myself". I have no genius for disputes in religion, and have often thought it wisdom to decline them, especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where we desire to be informed, 'tis good to 9 I cannot think but in this expression the author had respect to that of that excellent French writer Monsieur Montaigne (in whom I often trace him): Combien diversement jugeons nous de choses? Combien de fois changeons nous nos fantasies? Ce que je tien aujourdhui, ce que je croi, je le tien et le croi de toute ma créance; mais ne m'est il pas advenu, non une fois mais cent, mais mille, et tous les jours, d'avoir embrassé quelque autre chose? Montaigne, liv. 2 Des Essais, chap. 12. contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons, may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. Every man is not a proper champion for truth', nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity: many from the ignorance of these maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal for truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender; 'tis therefore far better to enjoy her 1 A good cause is never betrayed more than when it is prosecuted with much eagerness, and but little sufficiency; and therefore Zuinglius, though he were of Carolostadius's opinion in the point of the sacrament of the eucharist against Luther, yet blamed him for undertaking the defence of that cause against Luther, not judging him able enough for the encounter: Non satis habet humerorum, saith he of Carolostadius, alluding to that of Horace : Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, æquam Viribus; et versate diu, quid ferre recusent, So Minutius Felix: Plerumque pro differentium viribus, et eloquentiæ potestate, etiam perspicua veritatis conditio mutetur. Minut. in Octav. And Lactantius saith, this truth is verified in Minutius himself; for he spares not to blame Tertullian and Cyprian, as if they had not with dexterity enough defended the Christian cause against the Ethnicks. Lactant. de Justitia, cap. 1. I could wish that those that succeeded him had not as much cause of complaint against him: surely he is noted to have many errors contra fidem. with peace, than to hazard her on a battle: if therefore there rise any doubts in my way, I do forget them, or at least defer them, until my better settled judgment, and more manly reason be able to resolve them; for I perceive every man's own reason is his best Edipus, and will upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible and tender judgments. In philosophy, where truth seems double-faced, there is no man more paradoxical than myself: but in divinity I love to keep the road; and, though not in an implicit, yet an humble faith, follow the great wheel of the church, by which I move, not reserving any proper poles or motion from the epicycle of my own brain; by these means I have no gap for heresy, schisms, or errors, of which at present I hope I shall not injure truth to say I have no taint or tincture. I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with two or three, not any begotten in the latter centuries, but old and obsolete, such as could never have been revived, but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine; for indeed heresies perish not with their authors, but like the river Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up again in another. One general council is not able to extir 2 Who would not think that this expression were taken |