But yet, upon this acquaintance which he hath with the measure of all men's understandings, he informs his reader that " the only way to carry on the refoi-mation of the church, beyond what yet hath been done by Luther or Calvin, is by cashiering those many intricate terms and devised forms of speaking," which he hath observed slily to couch false doctrines, and to obtrude them on us ; an>l, by the Avay, that "this carrying on of refor- mation beyond the stint of Luther or Calvin was never yet so much as sin- cerely endeavoured." In the former passage, having given out himself as a competent judge of the understandings of all men, in this he proceeds to their hearts. " The reformation of the church," saith he, " was never sin- cerely attempted, beyond the stint of Luther and Calvin." Attempted it hath been, but he knows all the men and their hearts full well who made those attempts, and that they never did it sincerely, but with guile and hypocrisy ! Mr B. knows who those are that say, " With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own." To know the hearts of men and their frame towards himself, Mr B. instructs us, in his Catechism, that God himself is forced to make trial and experiments ; but for his OAvn part, without any great trouble, he can easily pronounce of their sincerity or hypocrisy in any undertaking! Low and vile thoughts of God will quickly usher in light, proud, and foolish thoughts concerning ourselves. Luther and Calvin were men whom God honoured above many in their generation; and on that account we dare not but do so also. That all chiu'ch reformation is to be measured by their line, — that is, that no farther discovery of truth, in, or about, or concerning the ways or works of God, may be made, but what hath been made to them and by them, — was not, that I know of, ever yet affirmed by any in or of any reformed church in the world. The truth is, such attempts as this of Mr. B.'s to overthrow all the foundations of Christian religion, to accommodate the Gospel to the Alcoran, and subject all divine mysteries to the judgment of that wisdom which is carnal and sensual, under the fair pretence of car-
TO HIS CATECHISM EXAMINED. 69
rying on the work of reformation and of discovering truth from the Scrip- ture, have perhaps fixed some men to the measure they have received be- yond what Christian ingenuity and the love of the truth requireth of them. A noble and free inquiry into the word of God, with attendance to all ways by him appointed or allowed for the revelation of his mind, with reliance on his gracious promise of " leading us into all truth" by his holy and blessed Spirit, without whose aid, guidance, direction, light, and assist- ance, we can neither know, understand, nor receive the things that are of God; neither captivated to the traditions of our fathers, for whose labour and pains in the work of the gospel, and for his presence with them, we daily bless the name of our God ; neither yet " carried about with every wind of doctrine," breathed or insinuated by the " cunning sleight of men who lie in wait to deceive," — is that which we profess. What the Lord will be pleased to do with us by or in this frame, upon these principles ; how, wherein, we shall serve our generation, in the revelation of his mind and will, — is in his hand and disposal. About using or casting oft' words and phrases, formerly used to express any truth or doctrine of the Scrip- ture, we will not contend with any, provided the things themselves signi- fied by them be retained. This alone makes me indeed put any value on any word or expression not griTug found in the Scripture, namely, my observation that they are questioned and rejected by none but such as, by their rejection, intend and aim at the removal of the truth itself which by them is expressed, and plentifully revealed in the word. The same care also was among them of old, having the same occasion administered. Hence when A^alens,^ the Arian emperor, sent Modestus, his pra?torian pra'feet, to persuade Basil to be an Arian, the man entreated him not to be so rigid as to displease the emperor and trouble the church, di' oXiyriv hoyi^dTm axeiCsiav, for an over-strict observance of opinions, it being but one word, indeed one sj'llable, that made the difterence, and he thought it not pru- dent to stand so much upon so small a business. The holy man replied, To7g ^sioig Xoyoig ivrid^a/M/xsvoi 'X^oiadai /msv rcov Ss/wi/ do'yij,d,ruv olihi [j/iav dvs- ^ovrai euWaZrjV — "However children might be so dealt withal, those who are bred up in the Scriptures or nourished with the word will not suffer one syllable of divine truth to be betrayed." The like attempt to this of Valens and Modestus upon Basil was made by the Arian bisliops at the council of Ariminum,^ who pleaded earnestly for the rejection of one or two words not found in the Scripture, laying on that plea much weight, when it was the eversion of the deity of Christ which they intended and attempted. And by none is there more strength and evidence given to this observation than by him with whom I have now to do, who, exclaim- ing against words and expressions, intends really the subversion of all the most fundamental and substantial truths of the gospel ; and therefore, hav- ing, pp. 19-21, reckoned up many expressions which he dislikes, con- demns, and would have rejected, most of them relating to the cliiefest heads of our religion (though, to his advantage, he cast in by the way two or three gross figments), he concludes " that as the forms of speech by him recounted are not used in the Scripture, no more are the things s'gnified by them contained therein." In the issue, then, all the quarrel is fixed upon the things themselves, which, if they were found in Scripture, the expressions insisted on might be granted to suit them well enough. What need, then, all this long discourse about words and expressions, when it is