"Monte (lecurrens velut amnis, imbres Quern super notas aluere iip;is, I'crvet, immensusque luit jirofundo
Pindarus ore."'
And he is hereby plainly possessed of not a few advantages. It is true that when the proof of his opinion by argument, and the orderly pursuit of it, is incum- bent on him (a course of all others wherein he soonest ftvileth), the medium he ussth and insisteth on receiveth not the least contribution of real strength from any dress of words and expressions wherewith it is adorned and accompanied; yet it cannot be denied but that his allegorical amplifications, illustrations, and exag- gerations of the things he would insinuate, take great impressions upon the minds of them who are in any measure entangled with the seeming probabilities which are painted over his arguments, by their sophistry and pi-etence of truth. The apostle, giving that caution to the Colossians, that they should take heed //.vi n; avTov; •ra/ixXoyi^tiTui Iv vi^avoXoyta, manifesteth the prevalency of false reasonings when in conjunction with rhetorical persuasion, Col. ii. 4. The great store also of words and expressions, which for all occasions he hath lying by him, are of no little use to him, when, being pressed with any arguments or testimonies of Scripture, and being not able to evade, he is forced to raise a cloud of them, wherewith after he hath a while darkened the wisdom and counsel of that wherewith he hath to do, he insensibly slips out of the cord wherewith he appeared to have been detained, and triumphs as in a perfect conquest, when only an unarticulate sound hath been given by his trumpet, but the charge of his adversaries not once received or re- pelled. But not anywhere doth he more industriously hoist up and spread the sails of his luxuriant eloquence than when he aims to render the opinion of his adversaries to be "monstrum horrendum, informe ingens, cui lumen ademptum," — a dark, dismal, uncomfortable, fruitless, death-procuring doctrine, such as it is marvellous that ever any poor soul should embrace or choose for a companion or guide in its pilgrimage towards heaven. Rolling through this field, his expres- sions swell over all bounds and limits; metaphors, similitudes, parables, all help on the current, though the streams of it being shallow and wide, a little opposi- tion easily turns it for the most part aside; a noise it makes, indeed, with a goodly show and appearance.
" Apylleu3
ITerculctt non mole minor,
Peil non illc rifjnr, palriumnue in corporc robiir.
Luxniiant nrtu«, cffiisaque sanguine laxo
Membra nalant." [.Stat. 'Iheb., vi. 837-S12, slightly altcrcil.]
' Ilor. O.I., lil.. iv. 2.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 15
This, as I said, prompts, I fear, the learned person of whom we speak to deal so harshW with some of them with whom he hath to do. And it is still feared that
" I'arata tollit cornua; Qualis LycambK spretus infido gener, Aut acer hoslis Bupalo." i
Ft might, indeed, be the more excusable if evident provocation were always ready at hand to be charged with the blame of this procedure, if he said only,
"An, si quis atro dente me petiverit, Inultus ut flubo puer."3
But for a man to warm himself by casting about his own pen until it be so filled with indignation and scorn as to blur every page and almost every line, is a course that will never promote the praise nor adorn the truth of God. For what remains concerning him, "Do illi ingenium, do eloquentiam et industriam; fidem et veritatem utinam coluisset."
The course and condition of my procedure with him, whether it be such as becometh Christian modesty and sobriety, with an allowance of those ingredients of zeal in contending for the truth which in such cases the Holy Ghost gives a command for, is referred to the judgment of all who are concerned, and account themselves so, in the things of God. As to any bitterness of expression, personal reflections, by application of satirical invectives, I know nothing by myself; and yet I dai'e not account that I am hereby justified. The calm and indifferent reader, not sensible of those commotions which the discovery of sophistical eva- sions, pressing of inconsequent consequences, bold assertions, etc., will sometimes raise in the most candid and ingenuous mind, may (and especially if he be an observer of failings in that kind) espy once and again some signs and appearances of such exasperations as ought to have been allayed with a spirit of meekness be- fore the thoughts that stirred them up had been tuined out of doors in the ex- pressions observed. Although I am not conscious of the delivery of myself in any terms intimating a captivity under the power of such a snare for a moment, yet what shall to the Christian reader occur of such a seeming tendency I humbly refer it to his judgment, being content to suffer loss in any hay or stubble what- ever that I may have laid upon the foundation of truth, which 1 am sure is firmly fixed by God himself in the business in hand.
For «'hat farther concerns my manner of dealing in this argument, I have only a few things to mention, i-everend brethren, and you will be discharged of the trouble of this prefatory address unto you. The matter in hand, I hope, you will find attended and pursued without either jocular or historical diversions, which are judged meet by some to retain the spirits and entice the minds of the readers, which are apt to faint and grow weary if always bent to the consideration of things weighty and serious. With you, who are continually exercised with severer thoughts and stud-ies than the most of men can immix themselves withal, such a condescension to the vanity of men's minds and lightness of their spirits I am sure can find no approbation. And as for them Avho make it their business to run through books of a polemical nature, in what subject soever, in pursuit of what is peisonal, ridiculous, invective, beating every chapter and section to find only what ought not to be there, and recoiling in their spirits upon the appearance of that which is serious and pressing to the cause in hand, I suppose you judge them not worthy to be attended to with such an imposition upon the time and diligence of those who sincerely seek the truth in love as the satisfying of their vain humour would require. It is, indeed, of sad consideration to see how some learned men (forgetting the loss of precious hours wherewith they punish their