CHRISTIAN MODERATION. THE SECOND BOOK. ON MODERATION IN MATTER OF JUDGMENT. INTRODUCTION. Of the Danger of Immoderation in matter of Judgment, and of the Remedy in general.-Lukewarmness to be avoided in Religion.-Zeal required in the matters of God; but to be tempered with Discretion and Charity As it would be a hard competition betwixt intellectual errors and practical, whether are the more heinous; so would it be no less difficult to determine, whether moderation in matter of Judgment or of Practice be more necessary: and whether neglect be more dangerous. For, surely, if the want of moderation in practice do most distract every man in his own particular, the want of moderation in judgment distracts the whole world from itself: whence it is, that we find so miserable divisions all the earth over; but especially, so woeful schisms and breaches in the Christian world; wherein we see one nation is thus divided from another, and each one nation no less divided from itself. For it cannot be, since every man hath a mind of his own, not less different from others than his face, that all should jump in the same opinion: neither can it stand with that natural self-love, wherewith every one is possessed, easily to forsake the child of his own brain, and to prefer another man's conceit to his own: hereupon, therefore, it comes to pass, that while each man is engaged to that opinion, which either his own election or his education hath feoffed him in, new quarrels arise, and controversies are infinitely multiplied; to the great prejudice of God's truth, and to the lamentable violation of the common peace". • Lata est ut dici solet differentia inter artifices, sicut inter Theologicos doctores. Gar. de propos, ab. Ep. hæreticandis. b Dispendio litis carere, non mediocre est lucrum. Amb. de Offic. 1. ii. c. 21. Would to God, we could as well redress, as bewail this misery, wherewith Christendom is universally infested: howsoever, it shall not be utterly thankless to endeavour it. The remedy must go in the same pace with the disease. Whereas, therefore, there are two things, which are guilty of this mischief, Error in Doctrine, and Distemper in Affection; the former I must leave to the conviction of those polemical discourses, which have been so learnedly written of the several points of difference; as I suppose no human wit or industry can give any further addition thereto : only I shall touch some such general symptoms, as are commonly incident into these controversies of religion. My main drift is, to dwell upon the latter; and to labour the reducing of men's hearts to a wise and Christian Moderation, concerning Differences in Judgment. Far be it from us, to allow Lukewarmness in the matters of God; a disposition, which the Almighty professeth so much to hate, that he could rather be content the angel of the Church of Laodicea should be quite cold, than in such a mambling of profession. And, indeed, what temper is so offensive to the stomach, as this mean? fit only for a medicinal potion, whose end is ejection; not for nourishment. d Those, whose devotion is only fashionable, shall in vain hope to be accepted. It is a true word of St. Austin, "There is no love, where there is no zeal ":" and what cares God for heartless followers, that are led only by example and form? Such there are, that yawn not out of any inward cause, but because they see others gape before them. As they say in the Abassin Churches, if one man sneeze, all the rest do, and must follow men, like unto moss, which takes still the property of the bark, it grows upon! if upon the oak, it cools and binds; if upon the pine and fir, it digests and softens: or, like unto the herballist's dodder, which is no simple in itself, but takes both his name and temper from the herb out of which it arises; if out of thyme, it is Epithimium; if out of the nettle it is Epiurtica. That great lawgiver of old would have a punishment for neuters: and well are they worthy, when the division is main and essential. Such men are merely for themselves; which have the truth of God, in respect of persons: not caring so much what is professed, as by whom. Suidas tells us of Musonius, so well reputed of; that no further question was made of any man, if it appeared he was Musonius's friend. Too many affect no other worth in themselves, than a dependance upon others; holding it enough, that they are the clients Non amat, qui non zelut. Aug. contr. Adimant. c. 13. e Gerard. Her. p. 1558. of this famous doctor, of that great saint. Such men, like as we have heard of some apothecaries, which only by taking the vapour of some drug in the stamping of it have been wrought upon, hold it sufficient for them, to have received in the very air and empty titles of disciples, without respect to the grounds and substance of the doctrine. The rule, which the blessed Apostle gave for our settlement in some cases, is wont, by a common misconstruction, to be so expressed, as if it gave way to a loose indifferency. The Vulgate reads it, Let every one abound in his own sense; as leaving each man to his own liberty, in those things of middle nature: whereas his words, in their Original, run contrary; Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind; requiring a plerophory of assurance, and not allowing an unsettled hesitation in what we do. And if thus, in matters of the least importance, how much more in the great affairs of religion! Here it holds well, which is the charge of the Apostle, It is good to be zealously affected, in a good thing, always; Gal. iv. 18. : Nothing is more easy to observe, than that, as it uses to be with stuffs, that, in their first making, they are strongly wrought; afterwards, in process of time, they grow to be slight, both in matter and work: so it falls out, in religious professions. In the first breaking out of a reformation, there appears much heat and forwardness; which, in time, abates and cooleth so as the professor grows to the temper of our Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury; whom Pope Urban of old, greets" in the style of a fervent Monk, a warm Abbot, a lukewarm Bishop, a key-cold Archbishop: or, like unto those kites, of whom our writers say, that, in their first years, they dare prey upon greater fowls; afterwards, they seize upon lesser birds; and, the third year, fall upon flies. Whence it is, that Melancthon could fore-guess, that the time should come, wherein men should be tainted with this error, that either religion is a matter of nothing, or that the differences in religions are merely verbal. : Far be it from us, thus to degenerate from our holy ancestors, whose zeal made them true holocausts to God; and sent up their souls, in the smoke of that their acceptable sacrifice, into heaven that those truths, which they held worthy bleeding for, we should slight, as not worth pleading for. We cannot easily forgive that wrong, which our late Spalatensis' did to our fresh-bleeding martyrs, whom even before, by revolt, he blamed of lavishness; as if they might well have spared that 8 Rom. xiv. 5. Εκαστος ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ να πληροφορείσθω. Girald. Cambrens. Itinerar. Thaumaturg. Nat. c. xxii. Metuendum est, etiam in postremá mundi ætate, magis hunc errorem grassaturum esse, quòd aut nihil sint religiones, * Melanct. Postil. de Baptist. Christi: aut differant tantùm vocabulis, &c. Spalat. part. iii. expence of blood: although we may well suppose he redeemed his error, by dying for the same truths, for which they fried alive, as he dead. We know what St. Basill answered to that great man, who would have persuaded him to let fall his holy quarrel: "Those," saith he, "that are trained up in the Scriptures, will rather die, than abate a syllable of Divine Truth "" It is said of Valentinian, that when the rude Scythians made an incursion into the territories of the Roman empire, he so overstrained his lungs, in calling upon his troops, that he presently died: so vehement must we be, when any main thing is in question: neither voice nor life must be spared, in the cause of the Almighty. The gloss, that is put upon the Act of Innocent the IVth., in the Council of Lyons, who graced the dignity of Cardinalship with a Red Hat, is, that it was done with an intention, as Martinus Polonus construes it, to signify they should be ready to shed their blood for Christ and his Gospel, might well fit every Christian; perhaps, somewhat better, than those delicate mates of princes. Whom should we imitate, but him, whose name we bear; who fulfilled that of the Psalmist, his type, The zeal of thine house hath even eaten me up? Ps, lxix. 9. John ii. 17. We must be zealous: we must not be furious. It is in matter of religion, as with the tending of a still if we put in too much fire, it burns; if too little, it works not: a middle temper must be kept. A heat there must be, but a moderate one. We may not be in our profession, like a drowzy judge upon a Grecian Bench, who is fain to bite upon beans, to keep himself from sleeping: neither may we be like that Grecian player, who acted mad Ajax, upon the stage: but we must be soberly fervent, and discreetly active. St. Paul's spirit was stirred within him, at Athens, to see the idol-altars amongst those learned philosophers; and it breaks out of his mouth, in a grave reproof: I do not see him put his hand furiously to demolish them. And if a Juventius and Maximinian, in the heat of zeal, shall rail on wicked Julian at a feast, he justly casts their death, not upon their religion, but their petulancy. It was a well-made decree in the Council of Eliberis, that if any man did take upon him to break down the idols of the heathen, and were slain in the place, he should not be reckoned amongst the martyrs. There must be, then, two moderators of our zeal; Discretion Qui divinis innutriti sunt eloquiis, &c. • Suid. v. λείας. Theodor. 1. iii. cap. 15. • Bin. in vitâ Innocentii. • Suid. v. καμότρωξ. Concil. Eliber. c. 60. Miles q. præsidiarius Rom. Felem, quam Ægyptii colebant ut Deum, interfecit: hinc tantus exortus tumultus, ut 7000 militum præsidiariorum trucidati sint. Melanct. Postill. Fer. ii. post Advent. ex Diodoro Sic. and Charity; without either and both of which, it is no other than a wild distemper; and, with them, it is no less than the very life blood of a Christian, or the spirits of that blood. From the common acts of both these, joined together, shall result these following maxims, as so many useful Rules of our Christian Moderation. RULES FOR MODERATION IN JUDGMENT. RULE I. TO DISTINGUISH OF PERSONS. THE first is, that we must necessarily distinguish betwixt persons, that are guilty of errors: for, as Austin well, it is one thing, to bear heretics; another thing, to be misled by a heretic and, I may well add, according to our construction, it is one thing, to be a herectic; another thing, to be a hæresiarch. These three degrees there are, even in the most dangerous errors of doctrine. There is a broacher and deviser of that wicked opinion: there are abettors and maintainers of it, once broached: there are followers of it, so abetted: and all these, as they are in several degrees of mischief, so they must all undergo an answerable, whether aggravation or mitigation of our censure. Those, who, by false teachers, are betrayed into that error, wherein now, either by breeding or by misinformation, they are settled, are worthy of as much pity, as dislike: those, who, out of stiffness of resolution and stomach of sidetaking, shall uphold and diffuse a known error, are worthy of hatred and punishment: but those, who, out of ambition, or other sinister respects, shall invent and devise pernicious doctrines, and thereby pervert others for their own advantages, are worthy of a Maranatha, and the lowest hell. We do easily observe it thus, in all real offences of a high nature. Absalom contrives the conspiracy against his father: the captains second and abet it: the common people follow both of them, in acting it. He should be an ill judge of men and actions, who should but equally condemn the author of the treason, and those that follow Absalom with an honest and simple heart. Neither is it otherwise, in the practice of all those princes, who would hold up the reputation of mercy and justice. While the heads of a sedition are hanged up, the multitude is dismissed with a general pardon. And if, in all good and commendable things, the first inventor of them is |