he thought, was left to ftand alone; I fay, in this cafe, when, as he verily believed, he had no body to stand by him, he was very jealous for the Lord God of hofts; and with an undaunted courage ftood up for the worship of the true God, and reproved Ahab to his face for his defection to the worship of idols, 1 Kings xviii. 18.

And those three brave youths, in the prophecy of Daniel, chap iii. did in the like refolute and undaunted manner refufe to obey the command of the great King Nebuchadnezzar, to worship the image. which he had fet up, when all others fubmitted, and paid honour to it; telling him plainly, If it be fo, our God whom we ferve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery farnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king: but if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not ferve thy gods, nor worship, the golden image which thou hast set up, y 17.

18.

In like manner, and with the fame fpirit and courage, Daniel withstood the decree of Darius, which forbade men to afk a petition of any God or man for thirty days, fave of the king only, Dan. vi. 7. and this under the pain of being caff into the den of lions: and when all others gave obedience to it, he fet open the windows of his chamber towards Jerufalem, and kneeled down upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime, y 10.

In the prevalency of the Arian heresy, Athanafius almost stood alone in the profeffion and maintenance of the truth. And in the reign of antichrift, the true church of God is represented by a woman flying into the wilderness, and living there in obfcurity for a long time; infomuch that the profeffors of the truth fhould hardly be found. And yet, during that degeneracy of fo great a part of the Chriftian church, and the prevalency of antichrift for fo many ages, fome few in every age did appear, who did refolutely own the truth, and bear witnefs to it with their blood: but thefe did almost stand alone and by themfelves, like a few fcattered fheep wandering up and down in a wide wilderness.

Thus, in the height of Popery, Wickliffe appeared here in England; and Hierome of Prague, and John Hufs, in Germany and Bohemia. And in the beginning

of

of the reformation, when Popery had quite over-run these Western parts of the world, and fubdued her enemies on every fide, and antichrift fat fecurely in the quiet poffeffion of his kingdom; Luther arofe, a bold and rough man, but a fit wedge to cleave in funder fo hard and knotty a block; and appeared ftoutly against the grofs errors and corruptions of the church of Rome; and for a long time stood alone, and with a most invincible fpirit and courage maintained his ground, and refifted the united malice and force of antichrift and his adherents; and gave him fo terrible a wound, that he is not yet perfectly healed and recovered of it.

So that for a man to ftand alone, or with a very few adhering to him, and standing by him, is not a mere imaginary fuppofition, but a cafe that hath really and in fact happened in feveral ages and places of the world. Let us then proceed to confider, in the

2. Second place, the due limits and bounds of this peremptory refolution. In all matters of faith and practice which are plain and evident either from natural reafon, or from divine revelation, this refolution feems to be very reasonable: but in things doubtful, a modest man, and every man hath reason to be fo, would be very apt to be staggered by the judgment of a very wife man, and much more of many fuch; and especially by the unanimous judgment of the generality of men; the general voice and opinion of mankind being next to the voice of God himself.

For in matters of an indifferent nature, which God hath neither commanded nor forbidden, fuch as are many of the circumstances and ceremonies of God's worfhip, a man would not be fingular, much less stiff and immoveable in his fingularity; but would be apt to yield and furrender himself to the general vote and opinion, and to comply with the common custom and practice; and much more with the rules and conftitutions of authority, whether civil or ecclefiaftical: because in things lawful and indifferent, we are bound by the rules of decency and civility not to thwart the general practice; and by the commands of God we are certainly obliged to obey the lawful commands of lawful authority.

But in things plainly contrary to the evidence of fenfe

or

or reason, or to the word of God, a man would compliment no man, or number of men: nor would he pin his faith upon any church in the world; much lefs upon any fingle man, no not the Pope; no though there were never fo many probable arguments brought for the proof of his infallibility.

In this cafe, a man would be fingular, and stand alone against the whole world; against the wrath and rage of a King, and all the terrors of his fiery furnace: as in other matters, a man would not believe all the learned men in the world against the clear evidence of fenfe and reafon. If all the great mathematicians of all ages, Archimedes, and Euclid, and Apollonius, and Diophantus, &c. could be fuppofed to meet together in a general council, and should there declare in the moft folemn manner, and give it under their hands and feals, that twice two did not make four, but five; this would not move me in the least to be of their mind: nay, I who am no mathematician, would maintain the contrary, and would perfilt in it, without being in the least startled by the pofitive opinion of these great and learned men ; and fhould most certainly conclude, that they were either all of them out of their wits, or that they were biaffed by fome in terest or other, and fwayed, against the clear evidence of truth, and the full conviction of their own reason, to make fuch a determination as this. They might indeed over-rule the point by their authority, but in my inward judgment I fhould ftill be where I was before.

Juft fo, in matters of religion, if any church, though with never fo glorious and confident a pretence to infallibility, should declare for tranfubftantiation; that is, that the bread and wine in the facrament, by virtue of the confecration of the priest, are fubftantially changed into the natural body and blood of Chrift; this is fo notoriously contrary both to the sense and reason of mankind, that a man should chufe to stand single in the oppofition of it, and laugh at, or rather pity the rest of the world that could be fo fervilely blind, as feemingly to confpire in the belief of so monstrous an abfurdity.

And, in like manner, if any church fhould declare, that images are to be worshipped, or that the worship of God is to be performed in an unknown tongue; and

that

that the holy fcriptures, which contain the word and will of God, and teach men what they are to believe and do in order to their eternal falvation, are to be locked up, and kept concealed from the people, in a language which they do not understand, left, if they were permitted the free use of them in their mother-tongue, they fhould know more of the mind and will of God than is convenient for the common people to know, whose devotion and obedience to the church does mainly depend upon their ignorance; or should declare, that the facrifice of Christ was not offered once for all, but is, and ought to be repeated ten millions of times every day; and that the people ought to receive the communion in one kind only, and the cup by no means to be trusted with them, for fear the profane beards of the laity should drink of it; and that the faving efficacy of the facraments doth depend upon the intention of the priest, without which the receiver can have no benefit by them: thefe are all of them fo plainly contrary to fcripture, and most of them in reafon fo abfurd, that the authority of no church whatsoever can oblige a man to the belief of them.

Nay, I go yet further, that being evidently contrary to the doctrine of the gofpel, though an Apostle, or an angel from heaven fhould declare them, we ought to reject them. And for this I have St. Paul's authority and warrant; who, fpeaking of fome that perverted the goSpel of Chrift, by teaching things contrary to it, Though we, (fays he), or an angel from heaven, preach any other gofpel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accurfed. As we faid before, fo fay I now a gain, Though an Apoftle, though an angel from heaven, preach any other gofpel unto you, than that ye have received, let him be accurfed, Gal. i. 7. 8. 9. You fee he repeats it over again, to exprefs not only his own confident affurance, but the certainty of the thing. And here is an anathema with a witness, which we may confidently oppofe to all the anathema's which the council of Trent hath fo liberally denounced against all those who shall presume to gainfay these new doctrines of their church; which are in truth another gospel than that which our blessed Saviour and his Apostles taught: and yet, on their

fide, there is neither an Apostle, nor an angel from heaven in the cafe.

To give but one instance more: If Bellarmine fhall tell me, as he expressly does, that "if the Pope should de"clare virtue to be vice, and vice to be virtue, I were "bound to believe him, unless I would fin against con"fcience;" and if all the world fhould fay the fame that Bellarmine does, namely, that this infallible declarer of virtue and vice were to be believed and followed: yet I could not poffibly be of their mind; for this plain and undeniable reafon, Because if virtue and vice be all one, then religion is nothing; fince the main defign of religion is, to teach men the difference between virtue and vice, and to oblige them to practise the one, and to refrain from the other: and if religion be nothing, then heaven and hell are nothing: and if heaven be nothing, then an infallible guide thither is of no ufe, and to no manner of purpofe; because he is a guide no whither, and fo his great office ceafes and falls of itself.

And now, left any fhould think me fingular in this affertion, and that thereby I give a great deal too much to the fingle judgment of private perfons, and too little to the authority of a church, I will produce the deliberate judgment of a very learned man, and a great afserter of the church's authority, concerning the matter I am now fpeaking of: I mean Mr. Hooker, in his defervedly admired book of ecclefiaftical polity. His words are thefe: "I grant, (fays he), that proof derived "from the authority of man's judgment, is not able to work that affurance which doth grow by a stronger "proof: and therefore, although ten thoufand general "councils fhould fet down one and the fame definitive ❝fentence concerning any point of religion whatsoever; 66 yet one demonstrative reafon alledged, or one tefti66 mony cited from the word of God himself, to the contrary, could not chufe but overfway them all; inaf"much as for them to be deceived it is not fo impoffi❝ble, as it is that demonftrative reafon or divine testimony fhould deceive."

And again, "For men (fays he) to be tied and led "by authority, as it were with a kind of captivity of "judgment, and though there be reafon to the contra

66

ry,