understanding of the story, the precepts, the promises, and the threats of the gospel? If the third, that they may understand something, but not enough for their salvation: I ask you, first, why then doth St Paul say to Timothy, "the Scriptures are able to make him wise unto salvation?" Why doth St Austin say— "those things which are plainly revealed in Holy Scriptures contain all things which relate to faith, and the way of living?" Why does every one of the four evangelists entitle their book the Gospel, if any necessary and essential parts of the gospel were left out of it? Can we imagine that either they admitted something necessary, out of ignorance, not knowing it to be necessary?—or, knowing it to be so, maliciously concealed it ?—or, out of negligence, did the work they had undertaken by halves? If none of these things can, without blasphemy, be imputed to them, considering they were assisted by the Holy Ghost in this work, then certainly it most evidently follows, that every one of them writ the whole gospel of Christ,—I mean, all the essential and necessary parts of it. So that, if we had no other book of Scripture but one of them alone, we should not want anything necessary to salvation. And what one of them hath more than another, it is only profitable, and not necessary; necessary indeed to be believed, because revealed; but not, therefore, revealed because necessary to be revealed. Neither did they write only for the learned, but for all men; this being one special means of the preaching of the gospel, which was commanded to be preached, not only to learned men, but to all men; and, therefore, unless we will imagine the Holy Ghost and them to have been wilfully wanting to their own desire and purpose, we must conceive that they intended to speak plain, even to the capacity of the simplest ;-at least, touching all things necessary to be published by them and believed by us. And whereas you pretend "it is so easy and obvious, both for the learned and the ignorant, both to know which is the Church, and what are the decrees of the Church, and what is the sense of the decrees," I say, this is a vain pretence. For, first, How shall an unlearned man, whom you have supposed now ignorant of Scripture,-how shall he know which of all the societies of Christians is indeed the Church? You will say, perhaps, "He must examine them by the notes of the Church, which are, perpetual visibility, succession, conformity with the ancient Church," &c. But how shall he know, first, that these are the notes of the Church, unless by Scripture, which, you say, he understands not? You may say, perhaps, he may be told so. But seeing men may deceive, and be deceived, and their words are no demonstrations, how shall he be assured that what they say is true? So that, at the first, he meets with an impregnable difficulty, and cannot know the Church but by such notes, which, whether they be the notes of the Church, he cannot possibly know. But let us suppose this isthmus digged through, and that he is assured these are the notes of the true Church, how can he possibly THAT IT IS EASIER TO UNDERSTAND SCRIPTURE, ETC. 93 be a competent judge which society of Christians hath title to these notes, and which hath not ?-seeing this trial, of necessity, requires a great sufficiency of knowledge of the monuments of Christian antiquity, which no unlearned man can have, because he that hath it cannot be unlearned. As, for example, how shall he possibly be able to know whether the Church of Rome hath had a perpetual succession of visible professors, which held always the same doctrine which they now hold, without holding anything to the contrary, unless he hath first examined what was the doctrine of the Church in the first age, what in the second, and so forth? And whether this be not a more difficult work than to stay at the first age, and to examine the Church by the conformity of her doctrine with the doctrine of the first age, every man of ordinary understanding may judge. Let us imagine him advanced a step further, and to know which is the Church. How shall he know what the Church hath decreed, seeing the Church hath not been so careful in keeping her decrees, but that many are lost, and many corrupted? Besides, when even the learned among you are not agreed concerning divers things, whether they be matters of faith or not, how shall the unlearned do? Then, for the sense of the decrees, how can he be more capable of the understanding of them than of plain texts of Scripture, which you will not suffer him to understand?—especially seeing the decrees of divers popes and councils are conceived so obscurely that the learned cannot agree about the sense of them ; and then they are written all in such languages, which the ignorant understand not; and therefore must, of necessity, rely herein upon the uncertain and fallible authority of some particular men, who inform them that there is such a decree. And if the decrees were translated into the vulgar languages, why the translators should not be as fallible as you say the translators of Scripture are, who can possibly imagine? Lastly, How shall an unlearned man, or indeed any man, be assured of the certainty of that decree, the certainty whereof depends upon suppositions which are impossible to be known whether they be true or no? For it is not the decree of a council unless it be confirmed by a true pope. Now, the pope cannot be a true pope if he came in by simony; which, whether he did or no, who can answer me? He cannot be a true pope unless he were baptized; and baptized he was not, unless the minister had due intention. So, likewise, he cannot be a true pope unless he were rightly ordained priest; and that, again, depends upon the ordainer's secret intention, and also upon his having the episcopal character. All which things, as I have formerly proved, depend upon so many uncertain suppositions, that no human judgment can possibly be resolved in them, I conclude, therefore, that not the most learned man among you all,-no, not the pope himself,-can, according to the grounds you go upon, have any certainty that any decree of any council is good and valid, and, consequently, not any assurance that it is indeed the decree of a council. 2. AGAINST INTOLERANCE.-(CHAP. IV., SECT. XVI.) You are offended with Dr Potter for not usurping the authority which he hath not; in a word, for not playing the pope. Certainly, if Protestants be faulty in this matter, it is for doing it too much, not too little. This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God, and laying them upon men's consciences together, under the equal penalty of death and damnation; this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God; this deifying our own interpretations, and tyrannous enforcing them upon others; this restraining of the Word of God from that latitude and generality, and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the apostles left them, is, and hath been, the only fountain of all the schisms of the Church, and that which makes them immortal; the common incendiary of Christendom, and that which tears into pieces, not the coat, but the bowels and members of Christ. Take away these walls of separation, and all will quickly be one. Take away this persecuting, burning, cursing, damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God; require of Christians only to believe Christ, and to call no man master but Him only; let those leave claiming infallibility that have no title to it, and let them that, in their words disclaim it, disclaim it likewise in their actions. In a word, take away tyranny, which is the devil's instrument to support errors, and superstitions, and impieties, in the several parts of the world, which could not otherwise long withstand the power of truth; I say, take away tyranny, and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only; and as rivers, when they have a free passage, run all to the ocean, so it may well be hoped, by God's blessing, that universal liberty, thus moderated, may quickly reduce Christendom to truth and unity. 2 3. THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS.—(CHAP. VI., SECT. LVI.) When I say the religion of Protestants is, in prudence, to be preferred before yours,' I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon; nor the Confession of Augusta, or Geneva; nor the Catechism of Heidelberg; nor the Articles of the Church of England; no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as the perfect rule of their faith and actions,that is, THE BIBLE. The BIBLE-I say the BIBLE only-is the religion of Protestants! Whatsoever else they believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but, as matter of faith and religion, neither can they, with coherence to their own grounds, believe it 1. e., The Roman Catholic. 2 i. e., Augsburg. SIR WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 95 95 themselves, nor require the belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I, for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of "the true way to eternal happiness," do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest to the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are popes against popes; councils against councils; some fathers against others; the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age; the Church of one age against the Church of another age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No tradition, but only of Scripture, can derive itself from the Fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty, but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe; this I will profess; according to this I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me anything out of this Book, and require whether I believe it or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this:- -God hath said so; therefore it is true. In other things I will take no man's liberty of judgment from him, neither shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man, nor the worse Christian; I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from And what measure I mete to others, I expect from them again. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that man ought not, to require any more of any man than this, to believe the Scripture to be God's Word; to endeavour to find the true sense of it; and to live according to it. me. This is the religion which I have chosen, after a long deliberation; and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely, much more wisely, than if I had guided myself according to your Church's authority. V. SIR WILLIAM DRUMMOND. WILLIAM DRUMMOND, of Hawthornden, was born in 1585, and was educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh; and as his father was a man of some wealth, he was thus able to complete his education by a four years' residence on the Continent. On his return, not feeling any inclination for public life, he retired to his country seat at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, one of the most picturesque spots in Britain, and devoted himself to the study of literature. At a later period, domestic disappointment led him to revisit the Continent, where, in the course of a lengthened tour, he acquired a knowledge of the Continental languages, and became familiar with their literature, then by no means a common accomplishment. He never took any share in public transactions; but on the breaking out of the disturbances in Scotland, his enthusiastic loyalty led him to publish some pamphlets in defence of King Charles, which exposed him to the ire of the covenanting rulers. He died in 1649, the fatal event being hastened, it is said, by grief at the success of the insurgent party, and the execution of the King. His works in prose and verse are superior to those of any Scotch writer of his day: his sonnets and other poems, though not free from conceits, are distinguished by elegance of language, smoothness of versification, and delicacy of sentiment. His prose works consist of a "History of the First Five Jameses," of some merit, some pamphlets against the Covenanters, and "A Cypress Grove," or "Meditation on Death," which, though the language is sometimes overcharged and the thoughts forced, is a work of much excellence, occasionally reminding the reader of the style of Drummond's great contemporary, Jeremy Taylor. 66 Death is the violent estranger of acquaintance, the eternal divorcer of marriage, the ravisher of the children from the parents, the stealer of parents from their children, the interrer of fame, the sole cause of forgetfulness, by which the living talk of those gone away as of so many shadows or age-worn stories: all strength by it is enfeebled, beauty turned into deformity and rottenness, honour into contempt, glory into baseness. It is the reasonless breaker off of all actions, by which we enjoy no more the sweet pleasures of earth, nor contemplate the stately revolutions of the heavens. The sun perpetually setteth, stars never rise unto us. It, in one moment, robbeth us of what with so great toil and care in many years we have heaped together; by this are successions of lineages cut short, kingdoms left heirless, and greatest states orphaned. It is not overcome by pride, soothed by flattery, tamed by entreaties, bribed by benefits, softened by lamentations, nor diverted by time. Wisdom, save this, can prevent and help everything. By death we are exiled from this fair city of the world; it is no more a world unto us, nor we any more a people unto it. The ruins of fanes, palaces, and other magnificent frames yield a sad prospect to the soul, and how should it without horror view the wreck of such a wonderful masterpiece as is the body? That death naturally is terrible and to be abhorred it cannot well and altogether be denied; it being a privation of life, and a not being, and every privation being abhorred of nature and evil in itself, the fear of it, too, being ingenerated universally in all creatures: yet I have often thought that even naturally, to a mind by nature only resolved and prepared, it is more terrible in conceit than in verity; and at the first glance, than when well pried into; and that rather by the weakness of our fantasy, than by what is in it; and |