8. Advocates of Reform are popular.

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers. 9. Reason thereof.

Because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment' is subject; but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly reprove supposed disorders of State, are taken for principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind; under this fair and plausible colour, whatsoever they utter, passeth for good and current. That which wanteth in the weight of their speech, is supplied by the aptness of men's minds to accept and believe it. Whereas on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices, deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who think that herein we serve the time, and speak in favour of the present State, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment; but also to bear such exceptions as minds, so averted beforehand, usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them.

10. Reformers generally inconsiderate.

The fervent reprehenders of things established by public authority are always confident and bold spirited men. But their confidence for the most part riseth from too much credit given to their own wits, for which cause they are seldom free from

error.

1 "Regiment;" i. e. rule or government.

11. Pertinacity in Error.

1

So easy it is for every man living to err, and so hard to wrest from any man's mouth the plain acknowledgment of error, that what hath been once inconsiderably defended, the same is commonly persisted in as long as wit, by whetting itself, is able to find out any shift, be it never so slight, whereby to escape out of the hands of present contradiction.

O merciful God, what man's wit is there able to sound the depth of those dangerous and fearful evils, whereunto our weak and impotent nature is inclinable to sink itself, rather than to shew an acknowledgment of error in that which once we have unadvisedly taken upon us to defend, against the stream, as it were, of a contrary public resolution!

Nature worketh in us all a love to our own counsels the contradiction of others is a fan to inflame that love.

Many talk of the Truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth.

12. Charity and humility of the primitive age.

Such was the ancient simplicity and softness of spirit, which sometimes prevailed in the world, that they whose words were even as oracles amongst men, seemed evermore loth to give sentence against any thing publicly received in the Church of God, except it were wonderfully apparently evil; for that they did not so much incline to that severity which delighteth to reprove the least things it seeth amiss, as to that charity which is unwilling to behold any thing that duty bindeth it to reprove. The state of this present age wherein zeal hath drowned charity,

1 66 Inconsiderably;" i. e. without consideration.

and skill meekness, will not now suffer any man to marvel, whatsoever he shall hear reproved, by whomsoever.

There is not any one amongst us all, but is a great deal more apt to exact another man's duty, than the best of us is to discharge exactly our own.

There is crept into the minds of men, at this day, a secret, pernicious, and pestilent conceit, that the greatest perfection of a Christian man doth consist in the discovery of other men's faults, and in wit to discourse of our own profession. When the world most abounded with just, righteous, and perfect men, their chiefest study was the exercise of piety, wherein for their safest direction they reverently hearkened to the readings of the Law of God, they kept in mind the oracles and aphorisms of wisdom which tended unto virtuous life; if any scruple of conscience did trouble them for matter of actions which they took in hand, nothing was attempted before counsel and advice were had, for fear lest rashly they might offend. We are now more confident, not that our knowledge and judgment is riper, but because our desires are another way. Their scope was obedience, ours is skill; their endeavour was reformation of life, our virtue nothing but to hear gladly the reproof of vice; they in the practice of their religion wearied chiefly their knees and hands, we especially our ears and tongues.

13. Roman Catholic teachers.

God's people have enquired at their mouths, what shall we do to have eternal life? wherein shall we build and edify ourselves? And they have departed home from their prophets, and from their priests, laden with doctrines which are precepts of men; they have been taught to tire out themselves with bodily exercise; those things are enjoined them, which God did never require at their hands,

and the things he doth require are kept from them; their eyes are fed with pictures, and their ears are filled with melody, but their souls do wither, and starve, and pine away; they cry for bread, and behold stones are offered them; they ask for fish, and see they have scorpions in their hands.

Even as the apostle doth say of Israel, that they are in one respect enemies, but in another beloved of God; in like sort with Rome, we dare not communicate concerning sundry her gross and grievous abominations; yet touching those main parts of Christian truth wherein they constantly still persist, we gladly acknowledge them to be of the family of Jesus Christ; and our hearty prayer unto God Almighty is, that being conjoined so far forth with them, they may at the length (if it be His will) so yield to frame and reform themselves, that no distraction remain in any thing, but that we "all may with one heart and one mouth glorify God the Father of our Lord and Saviour," whose Church we

are.

14. Traditions.

We do not reject them only because they are not in the Scripture, but because they are neither in Scripture, nor can otherwise sufficiently by any reason be proved to be of God.

15. Heresy.

The weeds of heresy grown unto ripeness, do even in the very cutting down scatter oftentimes those seeds which for a while lie unseen and buried in the earth, but afterwards freshly spring up again no less pernicious than at the first.

16. Four great heresies, their errors.

Four principal heresies there are which have in those things withstood the truth; Arians, by bend

ing themselves against the Deity of Christ; Apollinarians, by maiming and misinterpreting that which belongeth to his human nature; Nestorians, by renting Christ asunder, and dividing him into two persons; the followers of Eutyches, by confounding in his person those natures which they should distinguish. Against these there have been four most famous ancient General Councils; the Council of Nice, to define against Arians; against Apollinarians, the Council of Constantinople; the Council of Ephesus against Nestorians; against Eutychians, the Chalcedon Council. In four words, truly, perfectly, indivisibly, distinctly; the first, applied to his being God; and the second, to his being man; the third, to his being of both one; and the fourth, to his still continuing in that One both; we may fully, by way of abridgment, comprise whatsoever antiquity hath at large handled, either in declaration of Christian belief, or in refutation of the aforesaid heresies.

17. Unlawful Ministrations.

The ministry of things divine is a function, which as God did himself institute, so neither may men. undertake the same but by authority and power given them in lawful manner.

18. Fanaticism and Superstition.

-Zeal, unless it be rightly guided, when it endeavoureth most busily to please God, forceth upon him those unseasonable offices which please him not.

Superstition neither knoweth the right kind, nor observeth the due measure of actions belonging to the service of God, but is always joined with a wrong opinion touching things divine. Superstition is, when things are either abhorred or observed with a zealous or fearful, but erroneous relation to God. By means whereof, the superstitious do sometimes serve, though the true God, yet with needless