Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

II. Talk what you will of the Jews, that they are cursed, they thrive wherever they come; they are able to oblige the prince of their country, by lending him money: none of them beg, they keep together, and for their being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much.

INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE.

I. IT is all one to me if I am told of Christ, or some mystery of Christianity; if I am not capable of understanding, as if I am not told at all, my ignorance is as invincible, and therefore it is vain to call their ignorance only invincible, who never were told of Christ. The trick of it is to advance the priest, whilst the church of Rome says a man must be told of Christ by one thus and thus ordained.

:

IMAGES

I. THE Papists taking away the second commandment, is not haply so horrid a thing, nor so unreasonable amongst Christians as we make it for the Jews could make no figure of God, but they must commit idolatry, because he had taken no shape, but since the assumption of our flesh, we know what shape to picture God in. Nor do I know why we may not make his image, provided we be sure what it is; as we say St. Luke took the picD 6

ture

ture of the Virgin Mary, and St. Veronica of our Saviour; otherwise it would be no honour to the King to make a picture, and call it the King's picture, when it is nothing like him.

II. Though the learned Papists pray not to images, yet it is to be feared the ignorant do; as appears by the story of St. Nicholas in Spain. A countryman used to offer daily to St. Nicholas's image; at length by mischance the image was broken, and a new one made of his own plum-tree; after that the man forbore; being complained of to his ordinary, he answered, it is true he used to offer to the old image, but to the new he could not find in his heart, because he knew it was a piece of his own plum-tree. You see what opinion this man had of the image, and to this tended the bowing of their images, the twinkling of their eyes, the Virgin's milk, &c. Had they only meant representations, a picture would have done as well as these tricks. It may be with us in England they do not worship images, because, living amongst Protestants, they are either laughed out of it, or beaten out of it by shock of argument.

III. It is a discreet way concerning pictures in churches to set up no new, nor to pull down no old.

AMPERIAL

IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONS.

I. THEY say imperial constitutions did only confirm the canons of the church; but that is not so, for they inflicted punishment when the canons never did, viz. If a man converted a Christian to be a Jew, he was to forfeit his estate, and lose his life. In Valentinian's novels it is said, Constat episcopos forum legibus non habere, & judicant tantum de religione.

IMPRISONMENT.

I. SIR Kenelme Digby was several times taken and let go again, at last imprisoned in Winchester house. I can compare him to nothing but a great fish that we catch and let go again, but still he will come to the bait; at last therefore we put him into some great pond for store.

INCENDIARIES.

I. FANCY to yourself a man sets thè city on fire at Cripplegate, and that fire continues, by means of others, till it comes to White Friars, and then he that began it would fain quench it, does not he deserve to be punished most that first set the city on fire? it is with the incendiaries of the state: they that first set it on fire, (by monopolizing, for

So

rest

rest business, imprisoning Parliament men tertio Caroli, &c. are now become regenerate, and would fain quench the fire; certainly they deserved most to be punished for being the first cause of our distractions.

1

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

COINDEPENDENCY.DR...

I. INDEPENDENCY is in use at Amsterdam, where forty churches or congregations have nothing to do one with anotherand it is no question agreeable to the primitive times before the Emperor became Christian; for either we must say every church governed itself, or else we must fall upon that old foolish rock, that St Peter and his succes sors governed all, but when the civil state became Christian, they appointed who should govern them, before they governed by agree ment and consent: if you will do this, you shall come no more amongst us, but both the Independent man and the Presbyterian man do equally exclude the civil power, though after a different manner.

II. The Independents may as well plead they should not be subject to temporal things, not come before a constable, or a justice of peace, as they plead they should not be sub ject in spiritual things, because St, Paul says, Is it so, , that there is not a wise man amongst

86

[ocr errors]

II. The Pope challenges all churches to

be

be under him; the King and the two Archbishops challenge all the church of England to be under them. The Presbyterian man divides the kingdom into as many churches as there be Presbyteries, and your Independent would have every congregation a church by itself. dis

[merged small][ocr errors]

I. IN time of a Parliament, when things are under debate, they are indifferent; but in a church or state settled, there is nothing left indifferent.

37

PUBLIC

INTEREST.

I. ALL might go well in the commonwealth, if every one in the Parliament would lay down his own interest, and aim at the general good. If a man were sick, and the whole college of physicians should come to him and administer to him severally, haply so long as they observed the rules of art he might recover; but if one of them had a great deal of scamony by him, he must put off that, therefore he prescribes scamony; another had a great deal of rhubarb, and he must put of off that, and therefore he prescribes rhubarb, &c. they would certainly kill the man. We destroy the commonwealth, while we preserve our own private interests, and neglect the public.

HUMAN

« AnteriorContinuar »