of men holds not an equal pace, yea, and often runs counter to their theory: We naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evil. The rhetorick wherewith I perfuade another cannot perfuade myself: There is a depraved appetite in us, that will with patience hear the learned instructions of reafon; but yet perform no farther than agrees to its own irregular humour. In brief, we all are monsters, that is, a composition of man and beast; 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 sense to fit but at the feet of reafon. Lastly, I do defire with God that all, but yet affirm with men that few, shall know falvation; that the bridge is narrow, the passage strait unto life; yet those who do confine the church of God either to particular nati

ons, churches, or families, have made it far narrower than our Saviour ever meant St.

SECT. LVI.

1

The vulgar judgments that wrap the church of God in Strabo's cloak and restrain it unto Europe, seem to me as bad geographers as Alexander, who thought he had conquer'd all the world when he had not subdued 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 apostles, the deaths of the martyrs, the sessions 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

1

those christians who are in a manner all martyrs, maintaing their faith in the noble way of perfecution, and serving 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 saved, yet take our opinions together, and, from the confufion thereof, there will be no such thing as salvation, nor shall any one be saved; for first the church of Rome condemneth us, we likewise them; the sub-reformists and sectaries sentence the doctrine of our church as damnable, the atomist, or familist reprobates all these, and all these them again. Thus whilst the mercies of God dom promise us heaven, our conceits and opinions exclude us from that place. There must be therefore more than one St. Peter; particular churches and sects ufurp the gates of heaven and turn the key against

1

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 fal

Coc

3

I believe many are saved who to man feem reprobated, and many are reprobated, who, in the opinion and fentence of man, stand elected: their will appear at the last day, strange, and unexpected examples, both of his justice and his mercy; and therefore to define either, is folly in man, and insolency, ven in the devils: those acute and and fubtile spirits, in all their sagacity, can hardly divine who shall be faved, which if they could pro-' gnostick, their labour were at an end; nor need they compass the earth, feeking whom they may devour. Thofe

but Memselve

Those who, upon a rigid applica-
tion of the law, sentence Solomon
unto damnation, condemn not on-
ly him, himselves, and the whole
world; for by the letter, and writ-
ten 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 a-
lone we can pretend unto salvation,
and thro' which folomon might be
as easily saved as those who con-
demn him.
So may Jibarues by this

arbitrary pleasure.
SECT.. LVIII.

The number of those who pretend unto salvation, and those infinite swarms 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, especially, when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness, wherein, according to