of men holds not an equal pace, yea, and often runs counter to their theory: We naturally know what is good, but naturally purfue what is evil. The rhetorick wherewith I perfuade another cannot perfuade myfelf: There is a depraved appetite in us, that will with patience hear the learned inftructions of reafon; but yet perform no farther than agrees to its own irregular humour. In brief, we all are monfters, that is, a compofition of man and beaft; wherein we must endeavour to be as the poets fancy that wife man* Chiron, that is to have the region of man above that of beast, and fenfe to fit but at the feet of reafon. Laftly, I do defire with God that all, but yet affirm with men that few, fhall know falvation; that the bridge is narrow, the paffage ftrait unto life; yet thofe who do confine the church of God either to particular nati ons, ons, churches, or families, have made it far narrower than our Saviour ever meant it. SECT. LVI. The vulgar judgments that wrap the church of God in Strabo's cloak and restrain it unto Europe, feem to me as bad geographers as Alexander, who thought he had conquer'd all the world when he had not fubdued the half of any part thereof: For we cannot deny the church of God both in Afia and Africa, if we do not forget the peregrinations of the apoftles, the deaths of the martyrs, the feffions of many, and, even in our reformed judgment, lawful councils held in those parts in the minoritie and non-age of ours; nor must a few differences, more remarkable in the eyes of man than perhaps in the judgment of God, excommunicate from heaven one another, much less those. thofe those christians who are in a manner all martyrs, maintaing their faith in the noble way of perfecution, and ferving God in the fire; whereas we honour him but in the funshine. 'Tis true we all hold there is a number of elect and many to to be faved, yet take our opinions together, and, from the confufion thereof, there will be no fuch thing as falvation, nor fhall any one be faved; for firft the church of Rome condemneth us, we likewife them; the fub-reformists and fectaries fentence the doctrine of our church as damnable, the atomift, or familift reprobates all these, and all these them again. Thus whilft the mercies of God do promise us heaven, our conceits and opinions exclude us from that place. There must be therefore more than one St. Peter; particular churches and fects ufurp the gates of heaven and turn the key against against each other; and thus we go. to heaven against each others wills, conceits and opinions, and, with as much uncharity as ignorance, do err I fear in points, not only of our own, but one, another's falvation. SECT. LVII. I believe many are faved who to man seem reprobated, and many are reprobated, who, in the opinion and sentence of man, ftand elected: their will appear at the last day, ftrange, and unexpected examples, both of his juftice and his mercy; and therefore to define either, is folly in man, and infolency, отви en in the devils: thofe acute and and fubtile fpirits, in all their fagacity, can hardly divine who fhall be faved, which if they could pro- ' gnostick, their labour were at an end; nor need they compafs the earth, feeking whom they may devour. Those Those who, upon a rigid application of the law, fentence Solomon unto damnation, condemn not only him, himfelves, and the whole world; for by the letter, and written word of God, we are without exception in the state of death; but there is a prerogative of God, and an arbitrary pleasure above the letter of his own law, by which alone we can pretend unto falvation, and thro' which folomon might be as eafily faved as thofe who condemn him. ༣ may Tiberius by arbitrary pleasure SECT. LVIII. The number of those who pretend unto falvation, and thofe infinite fwarms who think to pass thro' the eye of this needle, have much amazed me. That name, and compellation of little flock, doth not comfort but deject my devotion, efpecially, when I reflect upon mine own unworthinefs, wherein, according to U my but themselve this |