sister of Rome! how unjustly branded with heresy ! insomuch as it is absolutely forbidden to the Grecian Priests to celebrate their Masses and divine Services, in the Roman fashion: neither may the Romans officiate in the Grecian manner, under the pain of perpetual suspension: and if a woman of the Latin Church be given in marriage to a Greek, she may not be suffered to live after the Grecian fashion; a solecism, much like to that of the Russian Churches, who admit none to their communion, be he never so good a Christian, if he do not submit himself to their matriculation, by a new baptism.

Sure, those Christians, that thus carry themselves towards their dear brethren, dearer perhaps to God than they, have either no bowels or no brains; and shall once find, by the difference of the smart, whether ignorance or hard heartedness were guilty of this injurious measure.

2. Next to the persons, the limits of this approach or remoteness are considerable, which must be proportioned according to the condition of them, with whom we have to deal.

If they be professed enemies to the Christian name, Beware of dogs, beware of the concision, saith the Apostle of the Gentiles; Phil. iii. 2. Justly must we spit at these blasphemers, who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan; Rev. ii. 9.

If they be coloured friends, but true heretics; such as do destroy, directly and pertinaciously, the foundation of Christian religion; the Apostle's charge is express, Hæreticum hominem devita; a man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition avoid and reject; Tit. iii. 10: and such an one as he may be, that adds blasphemy to heresy, it might be no real mistaking, though a verbal, of that wise and learned pontifician; who, misreading the Vulgate, made two words of one, and turned the verb into a noun, de vitá; supple, tolle : Put a heretic to death: a practice so rife in the Roman Church, against those saints, who, in the way, which they call heresy, worship the Lord God of their fathers, (Acts xxiv. 14.) believing all things which are written in the Law, in the Prophets, in the Apostles, that all the world takes notice of it; seeming, with the rapt Evangelist, to hear the souls, from under the altar, crying aloud, How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, on them that dwell upon the earth? Rev. vi. 9, 10.

Surely, were we such as their uncharitable misconstruction would make us, their cruelty were not excusable before God or men: but now, as our innocence shall aggravate their condemnation before the just tribunal in heaven; so our example

e Ne Græci Latine more, &c.

Ex Pio V. Anno 1566. Gavant. f Gavant, ex Congr. Episc. 20. Feb. 1596.

shall condemn them, in the judgment of all impartial arbiters here on earth for what client of Rome was ever sentenced to death, by the Reformed Church, merely for matter of religion? What are we other to them, than they are to us? The cause is mutually the same: only our charity is more; our cruelty less. Neither is this any small testimony of our sincere inno

cence.

It is a good rule of St. Chrysostom, if we would know a wolf from a sheep; since their clothing, as they use the matter, will not difference them; look to their fangs: if those be bloody, their kind is enough bewrayed; for, whoever saw the lips of a sheep besmeared with blood? It is possible to see a Campian at Tyburn, or a Garnet's head upon a pole. Treasonable practices, not mere religion, are guilty of these execu

tions.

But, however our Church is thus favourable, in the case of those heresies, which are either simple, or secondary, and consequential; yet, in the cases of heretical blasphemy, her holy zeal hath not feared to shed blood: witness the flames of Ket, and Legat, and some other Arians in our memory: and the zealous prosecution of that Spanish Cistertian, whom we heard and saw, not long since, belching out his blasphemous contumelies against the Son of God; who, after he was given over to the secular power for execution, was, by the Spanish Ambassador, Master Gondemor, carried back into Spain by leave from King James, of blessed memory in which kind also Master Calvin did well approve himself to God's Church, in bringing Servetus to the stake at Geneva.

As for those, which are heretics only by consequence and interpretation, heedlessly undermining that foundation, which they would pretend to establish, as we may not, in regard of their opinions in themselves, utterly blot them out of the catalogue of brethren; so we must heartily endeavour all good means for their reclamation, strive to convince their errors, labour with God for them in our prayers, try to win them with all loving offices: neither need we doubt to join with them in holy duties until their obduredness and wilful pertinacy shall have made them incapable of all good counsel; and have drawn them to a turbulent opposition of the truth: for, as it is in actual offences, that not our sin, but our unrepentance damns us; so it is in these matters of opinion: not the error, but the obstinacy, incurs a just condemnation. So long, therefore, as there is hope of reformation, we may, we must comply with this kind of erring Christians: but not without good Cautions.

First, that it be only in things good or indifferent.

Secondly, that it be with a true desire to win them to the truth.

Thirdly, that we find ourselves so thoroughly grounded, as that there be no danger of our infection: for we have known it fall out with some, as with that noble Grecian, of whom Xenophon speaks; who, while he would be offering to stay a Barbarian from casting himself down from the rock, was drawn down with him for company from that precipice. St. Austin professes, that this was one thing, that hardened him in his old Manicheism; That he found himself victorious in his disputations, with weak adversaries. Such men, instead of convincing, yield; and make themselves miserable, and their opposites foolishly proud and misconfident.

Fourthly, that we do not so far condescend to complying with them, as, for their sakes, to betray the least parcel of divine truth. If they be our friends, it must be only, usque ad aras. There we must leave them. That, which we must be content to purchase with our blood, we may not forego for favour, even of the dearest.

Fifthly, that we do not so far yield to them, as to humour them in their error; as to obfirm them in evil; as to scandalize others.

And, lastly, if we find them utterly incorrigible, that we take off our hand, and leave them unto just censure.

g

As for differences of an inferior nature; if but De venis capillaribus, et minutioribus theologicarum quæstionum spinetis, as Staphilus would have theirs; or if of matters ritual, and such as concern rather the decoration than the health of religion; it is fit they should be valued accordingly. Neither peace, nor friendship should be crazed for these, in themselves considered.

But, if it fall out, through the peevishness and self-conceit of some crossed dispositions, that even those things, which are in their nature indifferent, (after the lawful command of authority) are blazoned for sinful and heinous, and are made an occasion of the breach of the common peace, certainly, it may prove, that some schism, even for trivial matters, may be found no less pernicious, than some heresy. If my coat be rent in pieces, it is all one to me, whether it be done by a brier, or a nail, or by a knife. If my vessel sink, it is all one, whether it were with shot or a leak. The less the matter is, the greater is the disobedience, and the disturbance so much the more sinful. No man can be so foolish, as to think the value of the apple, was that, which cast away mankind; but the violation of a divine interdiction.

It is fit therefore, that men should learn to submit themselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; 1 Pet. ii. 13: but, if they shall be wilfully refractory, they must be put in

Staphil. Defens. contra Illiricum.

mind, that Korah's mutiny was more fearfully revenged, than the most grievous idolatry.

RULE XI.

TO REFRAIN FROM ALL RAILING TERMS, AND SPITEFUL PROVOCATIONS, IN DIFFERENCES OF REligion.

It shall be our eleventh rule for Moderation, that we refrain from all railing terms, and spiteful provocations of each other, in the differences of religion: a charge too requisite for these times: wherein it is rare to find any writer, whose ink is not tempered with gall and vinegar; any speaker, whose mouth is not a quiver of sharp and bitter words; Ps. lxiv. 3.

It is here, as it is in that rule of law: "The breach of peace is begun, by menacing; increased, by menacing; but finished, by this battery of the tongue." Wherein we are like those Egyptians, of whom the historian speaks, who, having begun their devotion with a fast, while the sacrifice was burning, fell upon each other with blows; which having liberally dealt on all hands, at last they sat down to their feast. Thus do we: after professions of a holy zeal, we do mercilessly wound each other with reproaches; and then sit down, and enjoy the contentment of our supposed victory. Every provocation sets us on; and then, as it useth to be with scolds, every bitter word heightens the quarrel. Men do, as we use to say of vipers, when they are whipt, spit out all their poison.

These uncharitable expressions, what can they bewray, but a distempered heart, from which they proceed; as the smoke and sparks flying up show the house to be on fire; or as a corrupt spittle shows exulcerate lungs. By this means it falls out, that the truth of the cause is neglected, while men are taken up with an idle, yet busy prosecution of words: like as in thrashing, the straw flies about our ears, but the corn is hid. And, it hath been an old observation, that when a man falls to personal railing, it argues him drawn utterly dry of matter, and despairing of any farther defence; as we see and find, that the dog, which running back falls to bawling and barking, hath done fighting any more.

I have both heard and read', that this practice is not rare amongst the Jews, to brawl in their public Synagogues, and to bang each other with their holy candlesticks and censers; insomuch that this scandal hath endangered the setting off some

Hospin. de Festis Ethnic.

Ex utráque parte, sunt qui pugnare cupiant. Cic. Tyroni suo Epist. 1. 16. * Erasmus taxat Hilarium, quòd Arium appellat Satanam et Antichristum. Præfat. ad Hilar. Mr. Blunt's Voyage to the Levant.

of theirs to Mahometanism. And I would to God, it were only proper unto them; and not incident unto too many of those, who profess to be of the number of them, to whom the Prince of Peace said, My peace I leave with you.

prey,

It is the caveat, which the blessed Apostle gives to his Galatians, and in them to us; If ye bite and devour one another, take heed ye be not consumed one of another; Gal. v. 15. Lo here, it is the tongue that bites; and so bites, as that, after the fashion of a mad dog's teeth, both rage, and death, follows. And if any man think it a praise, with the Lacedæmonian in Plutarch, to bite like a lion, let him take that glory to himself; and be as he would seem, like a lion that is greedy of his and as a young lion, that lurketh in secret places; Ps. xvii. 12: but, withal, let him expect that just doom of the God of Peace, Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet; Ps. xci. 13. Certainly, it is in vain for us to expect any other measure, from the exasperated and unruly minds of hostile brethren, whose hatred is commonly so much greater, as their interest is more. They, whose fires would not meet after death, are apt in life to consume one another ".

This is the stale and known machination of him, whose true title is, The accuser of the brethren. That old dragon, when he saw the woman flying to the wilderness to avoid his rage; what doth he? He casts out of his mouth water, as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood; Rev. xii. 15. What are these waters, which he casts out of his mouth, but slanderous accusations, lyings, detractions, cruel persecutions of the tongue? And shall we, that profess the dear name of one common Saviour, so far second the great Enemy of Mankind, as to derive some cursed channels from those hellish floods of his, for the drenching of the flourishing valleys of God's Church? Shall we rather imitate him, than the blessed Archangel of God, who, contending with the Devil, and disputing about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee? Jude 9. Nay, shall we dare to do that to Brethren, which the Angel durst not do to the Devil?

When we hear and see fearful thundering, and lightning, and tempest, we are commonly wont to say, that ill spirits are abroad; neither doubt I, but that, many times, as well as in Job's case, God permits them to raise these dreadful blusterings in the air: right so, when we see these flashes, and hear these hideous noises of contention in God's Church, we have reason to think, that there is a hand of Satan, in their raising and continuance. For as for God, we know his courses are otherwise. When it

m Eteocles and Polynices.