7.

They say the People are apt to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction, and that the promiscuous and indiscriminate use of them has been the great occasion of heresies. It cannot be denied to be the condition of the very best things in the world, that they are liable to be abused; health and light, and Liberty, meats and drink, as well as knowledge, are often used to bad purpose. But must all these, therefore, be taken away? This very inconvenience of people's wresting the Scriptures, and making them speak what they did not intend, St. Peter takes notice of, in his days, and prophetically foresaw what the Romanists would do in their times; but he does not therefore forbid men the reading of them, as his successors have done since. Suppose the reading of the Scriptures have been the occasion of heresies, were there ever more than in the first ages of Christianity? And yet neither the Apostles, nor their immediate successors ever prescribed this remedy. But are they in earnest ? Must not men know the truth for fear of falling into error? Because some men may possibly miss their way at noontide, must others never travel but, in the night, when they are sure to lose it?

But it is not true that heresies have sprung from this cause? They have generally been broached by the learned, from whom the Scriptures neither were, nor could be concealed, and never by the common people. And for this, I appeal to the history and experience of all ages. I am well assured the ancient fathers were of another mind. St. Chrysostom says, "If men would be conversant in the Scriptures, and attend to them, they would not only not fall into errors themselves, but rescue those that are deceived; and that the Scriptures would instruct men both in right opinions and a good life." And St. Jerome more expressly to the

purpose, that "infinite evils arise from the ignorance of the Scriptures, and that from that cause the most part of heresies have come."

But, if the Scriptures are so dangerous as Romanists represent them, is not this to lay the blame of all the ancient heresies upon the ill-management of our Saviour, and his Apostles, and the holy fathers of the Church for so many ages, and their imprudent dispensing of the Scriptures to the people for their guidance and direction? This indeed is charging the point in question home, and yet the consequence is unavoidable. For the Church of Rome cannot justify her present practices, without accusing all these.

But the thing which they chiefly rely upon is this, that though these things were otherwise in the Apostle's days, and in the ancient Church, yet the Church has power to alter what she deems convenient according to the exigence and circumstance of time.

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To shew the weakness of this pretence, it must be granted, that the governors of the Church have in no age more power than the Apostles had in their's.Now, St. Paul tells us, 2 Cor. x. 8, That the Authority, which the Apostles received from the Lord, was only for edification, but not for destruction;" and the same St. Paul makes it the business of a whole chapter to shew that the performing the public service of God, and particularly, praying in an unknown tongue, are contrary to edification; from which premises the conclusion is plain, that the Apostles themselves had no authority to appoint the service of God to be performed in an unknown tongue; and surely, it is arrogance for the Church, in any age, to pretend greater authority than the Apostles had; and therefore, no church can unchurch at any time, the unchange able Church of Christ.

This is the sum of what our adversaries say in their Justification in these points. And there is no doubt, as lawyers do in Court, that men of wit and assurance will always make a shift to say something for any thing, and some way or other give a superficial tint and daubing to the blackest and most absurd things in the world. But I leave it to the judg ment of any man of candor, whether any thing be more unreasonable, than to tell men in effect, that it is fit they should understand as little of religion as is possible; that God has published a very dangerous book; with which it is not safe for the people to be familiarly acquainted; that our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles, and the ancient Christian Church, for more than six hundred years, were not wise managers of religion, nor prudent dispensators of the Scriptures, but like fond and foolish fathers; put a knife and a sword into the hands of their children, with which they might easily have foreseen what mischief they would do to themselves and others. And who would not choose to be of such a church, which is provided with such excellent and effectual means of ignorance, such wise and infallible methods for the prevention of knowledge in the people, and such variety of close shutters to keep out the light of divine knowledge?

This is so very plain and evident, that the most ordinary capacity may judge of this usage and dealing with the souls of men; which is so very gross, that every man cannot avoid being sensible of it: because it touches every man in the common rights of humau nature, which belong to them as much as the light of heaven, and the air we breath in,

It requires no subtlety of wit, no skill in antiquity, to understand these controversies between Romanists. and Protestants. For there are no fathers to be pretended on both sides in these questions; they yield

we have antiquity on ours; and we refer it to the common sense of mankind, which Church, that of Rome, or ours, has all the right and reason in the world on her side, in these disputes? And, who they are that tyrannize over Christians, the governors of their Church, or ours? Who use the people like sons and freemen; and who like slaves? Who feed the flock of Christ committed to them, and who take the children's bread from them? Who they are that when their children ask for bread, for bread give them a stone, and for an egg a serpent? I mean the legends of their saints, instead of the Holy Scriptures, "which are able to make men wise unto salvation ;" and who are they that lie most justly under the suspicion of errors and corruptions, they who bring their doctrine and practises into the open light, and are willing to have them tried by the true touchstone-the Word of God; or they who shun the light and decline all manner of examination? And who are most likely to carry on a worldly design, they who drive a trade of such mighty gain and advantage, under pretence of religion; and make such markets of the ignorance and sins of the people: or Protestants of the established Church, whom malice itself cannot charge with serving any worldly design by any allowed doctrine or practice of their religion? For they make no money of the mistakes or sins of the people, nor do they fill their heads with vain fears of new places of torment, to make them willing to empty their purses, in a vainer hope of being delivered out of them. They do not, like them, pretend a mighty bank and treasure of merits in the Church, which they sell to the people for ready money, giving them Bills of Exchange from the Pope to Purgatory, when they, who grant them, have no reason to believe they will avail them, or be accepted in the other world.

For their parts, they have no fear that their people should understand religion too well: they could wish with Moses, "that all the Lord's people were prophets:" they should be heartily glad the people would read the Scriptures more diligently, being sufficiently assured, that it is their own fault if they learn any thing but what is good from them: They have no doctrines or practises contrary to Scripture; and consequently, no occasion to keep it close from the eyes of the people, or to hide any of the commandments of God from them: they leave these mean arts to those who stand in need of them.

In a word, there is nothing which God has said to men, which Protestants desire should be concealed from them; they are willing the people should examine what they teach, and bring all their doctrines" to the law and to the testimony;" that if they be not according to this rule, they may not believe them. It is only things false and adulterate which shun the light and fear the touchstone. They have that security of the truth of their religion; and of the agreeableness of it to the Word of God, that honest confidence of the goodness of their cause, that they do not forbid the people to read the best (or worst) books their adversaries can write against it.

Now, let any impartial man judge whether this be not a better argument of a good cause, to leave men at liberty to try the grounds of their religion, than the courses which are taken in the Church of Rome, to frighten men with an Inquisition; and as much as is possible, to keep the common people in ignorance, not only of what their late adversaries, the Protestants, but their chief and ancient adversary, the Scriptures, have to say against them.