solemnity of good use and consequence in the state; but the philosopher that threw his money into the sea to avoid avarice, was a notorious prodigal. There is no road or ready way to virtue, it is not an easy point of art to disentangle ourselves from this riddle, or web of sin; to perfect virtue, as to religion, there is required a panoplia, or complete armour; that whilst we lie at close ward against one vice, we lie not open to the venny of another. And indeed wiser discretions that have the thread of reason to conduct them, offend without a pardon; whereas under-heads may stumble without dishonour. There go so many circumstances to piece up one good action, that it is a lesson to be good, and we are forced to be virtuous by the book. Again, the practice 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 persuade another, cannot persuade myself; there is a depraved appetite in us, that will with patience hear the learned instructions of reason, but yet perform no farther than agrees to its own irregular humour. In brief, we are all monsters, that is, a composition of man and beast; wherein

we must endeavour to be as the poets fancy that wise man Chiron, that is, to have the region of man above that of beast, and sense to sit but at the feet of reason. Lastly, I do desire with God, that all, but yet affirm with men, that few shall know salvation; that the bridge is narrow, the passage straight unto life; yet those who do confine the church of God, either to particular nations, churches, or families, have made it far narrower than our Saviour ever meant it.

LVI. The vulgarity of those 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 conquered all the world when he had not subdued the half of any part thereof. For we cannot deny the church of God both in Asia 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 minority and nonage of ours. 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 Christians who are in a manner all

Nor

martyrs, maintaining their faith in the noble way of persecution, and serving God in the fire, whereas we honour him but in the sunshine. 'Tis true, we all hold there is a number of elect, and many to be saved; yet take our opinions together, and from the confusion 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 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 sects usurp the gates of heaven, and turn the key against each other; and thus we go to heaven against each other's 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 salvation.

LVII. I believe many are saved who to man seem reprobated, and many are reprobated who in the opinion and sentence of man stand elected. There 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 even in the devils; those acute and subtile spirits in all their sagacity can hardly divine who shall be saved; which if they could prognostick, their labour were at an end, nor need they compass the earth, seeking whom they may devour. Those who upon a rigid application of the law sentence Solomon unto damnation, condemn not only him, but themselves, 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 salvation, and through which Solomon might be as easily saved as those who condemn him.

LVIII. The number of those who pretend unto salvation, and those infinite swarms who think to pass through 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 my humble apprehensions, I am below them all. I believe there shall never be an anarchy in heaven, but as there

are hierarchies amongst the angels, so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the saints. Yet is it (I protest) beyond my ambition to aspire unto the first ranks; my desires only are, and I shall be happy therein, to be but the last man, and bring up the rear in heaven.

LIX. Again, I am confident, and fully persuaded, yet dare not take my oath of my salvation: I am as it were sure, and do believe without all doubt, that there is such a city as Constantinople; yet for me to take my oath thereon were a kind of perjury, because I hold no infallible warrant from my own sense to confirm me in the certainty thereof. And truly, though many pretend to absolute certainty of their salvation, yet when an humble soul shall contemplate her own unworthiness, she shall meet with many doubts, and suddenly find how little we stand in need of the precept of St. Paul, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. That which is the cause of my election, I hold to be the cause of my salvation, which was the mercy and beneplacit of God, before I was, or the foundation of the world. Before Abraham was, I am, is the saying of Christ; yet is it true in some sense if I say it of myself; for I was not only before