IS ANI^tfADVERSIOXS OX A TREATISE
CHAPTER IV.
Contests about religion and reformation, schoolmen, etc.
CllAP. I.^ The title of tliis chapter was proposed; the pursuit of it now ensues. The first paragraph is a declamation about sundry things which have not much blameworthy in them. Their common weakness is, that they are common. They tend not to the further- ance of any one thing more than another, but are such as any party may flourish withal, and use to their several ends as they please. That " desire of honour and applause in the world" hath influenced the minds of men to great and strange undertakings, is certain; that it should do so is not certain nor true: so that when we treat of religion, if we renounce not the fundamental principle of it in self-denial, this consideration ought to have no place. What, then, was done by emperors and 23hiloso2)hers of old, or by the later school- men on this account, Ave are little concerned in. Nor have I either desire or design to vellicate any thing s|)oken by our author that may have an indifferent interpretation put upon it, and be separated from the end which he princijDally pursues. As there is but very little spoken in this paragTaph directly tending to the whole end aimed at, so there are but three things that will any way serve to leaven the mind of his reader, that he may be prepared to be moulded into the form he hath fancied to cast him into ; which is the work of all these previous harangues.
The first is his insinuation that the " reformation of religion is a thing pretended by emulous plebeians, not able to hope for that super- visorship in religion which they see intrusted with others." How unserviceable this is unto his design, as applied to the church of Eng- land, all men know: for, setting aside the consideration of the influ- ence of sovereign royal authority, the first reformers amongst us were persons who, as they enjoyed the right of reputation for the excellen- cies of learning and wisdom, so also were they fixed in those places and conditions in the church which no reformation could possibly advance them above; and the attempt whereof cost them not only their dignities, but their lives also. Neither were Hezekiah, Josiah, nor Ezra of old, "emulous pleljeians," whose lasting glory and renown arose from their reformation of religion. They who fancy men in all great undertakings to be steered l)y desire of applause and honour, are exceeding incompetent judges of those actions which zeal for the glory of God, love to tlie truth, sense of their duty to the Lord Jesus Clirist, and compassion for the souls of others, do lead men unto, and ' This numeration refers to tlic clmptcr in "Fiat T.ux," wliicli Dr Owen is refuting.
ENTITLED FIAT LUX. 49
guide tliem in; and such will the last day manifest the Reformation traduced to have been.
The second is a gallant commendation of the ingenuity, charity, candour, and sublime science of the schoolmen. I confess they have deserved good words at his hands. These are the men who, out of a mixture of philosophy, traditions, and Scripture, all corrupted and perverted, have hammered that faith which was afterward confirmed under so many anathemas at Trent. So that upon the matter he is beholden to them for his religion; which I find he loves, and hath therefore reason to be thankful to its contrivers. For my part, I am as far from envying them their commendation as I have reason to be; which, I am sure, is far enough. But yet before we admit this testimony, hand over head, I could wish he would take a course to stop the mouths of some of his own church, and those no small ones neither, who have declared them to the world to be a pack of egregious so- phisters, — neither good philosophers nor any divines at all ; men who seem not to have had the least reverence of God, nor much regard to the truth in any of their disputations, but were wholly influenced by a vain reputation of subtilty, desire of conquest, of leading and denominating parties, and that in a barbarous science, barbarously expressed, until they had driven all learning and divinity almost out of the world. But I will not contend about these fathers of conten- tion : let every man esteem of them as he seems good.
There is the same respect in that bitter reflection which he makes on those who have managed differences in religion in this last age; the third thing observable. That they are the writers and writings that have been published against the Papacy which he intends, he doth more than intimate. Their disputes, he tells us, " are managed with so much miseemly behaviour, such unmannerly expressions, that dis- creet sobriety cannot but loathe and abhor to read them ; " Avith very much more to this purpose. I shall not much labour to persuade men not to believe what he says in this matter ; for I know full well that he believes it not himself He hath seen too many Protestant books, I suppose, to think this censure will suit them all. This was meet to be spoken for the advantage of the Catholic cause : for Avhat there hath been of real offence in this kind amongst us we may say, " Iliacos inti-a muros peccatur et extra;" — Romanists are sinners as w^ell as others. And I suppose himself knows that the reviling and defamations used by some of his party are not to be paralleled in any writings of mankind at this day extant.