58 ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
are we at any such a loss therein as to bring us to any uncertainty about the piinciples of our rehgion ; nor, if we were, have we the least reason to look for any relief from Rome. When I happen upon any of these discourses, I cannot but say to myself, What do these men intend ? Do they know what they do, or with whom they have to deal ? Have they ever read the Scriptures, or tasted any sweet- ness in it ? If they instruct their disciples unto such mean thoughts of the holy word of God, they undo them for ever. And if I meet >\ith these bold efforts against the wisdom of God twenty times, I cannot but still thus startle at them.
The two foUovving motives, being taken up, as far as I can appre- hend, to give our author an advantage to make sport for himself and others, in canvassing some expressions and discourses of our talkative times, and the vulgar, brutish management of our differences by some weak, unknowing persons, need not detain us. Did I judge it a business worthy of any prudent man's consideration, it were easy to return him for his requital a collection of the pretty prayers and de- votions of his good Catholics, of their kind treatment one of another, or the doughty arguments they make use of amongst themselves and against us, abundantly enough to repay him his kindness, without being beholden to any of those legends which they formerly accom- modated the people withal, in room both of Scripture and preaching, though of late they begin to be ashamed of them.
CHAPTER V.
Obscurity of God, etc.
Chap. II. Unto the ensuing whole chapter, wherein our author expatiates with a most luxuriant oratory throughout, and ofttimes soars with poetical raptures in setting forth the obscurity and dark- ness o'f all things, our ignorance and disability to attain a right and perfect knowledge of them, canting by the way many of those pretty notions which the philosophical, discoursive men of our days do use to wliet their wits upon over a glass of wine, I have not much to offer; nor should I once reflect upon that discourse, were it not de- signed to another end than that which it is ushered in by, as the thing aimed to be promoted by it. Forbearance of one another in our several persuasions, on a sense of our infirmity and weakness, and the obscurity of those things about which our minds and contempla- tions are conversant, is flourished at the entrance of this harangue:
ENTITLED FIAT LUX. 59
after a small progress, the snake begins to hiss in the gi'ass, and in the close openly to show itself in an enticement unto an embracing of the E,oman religion ; which, it seems, will disentangle our minds out of that maze about the things of God and man in which, without its guidance, we must of necessity wander for ever. As for his philo- sophical notions, I suppose they were only vented to show his skill in the learned talk of this age, and to tole on the gallants whom he hath most hope to inveigle, knowing them to be candidates for the most part unto that scepticism which is gi'own the entertainment of tables and taverns. How a man that is conversant in his thoughts about relioion, and his choice ot or settlement therein, should come to have any concernment in this discourse, I cannot imagine. That God, who is infinitely wise, holy, good, who perfectly knows all his own excellencies, hath revealed so much of himself, his mind and will, in reference to the knowledge which he requires of himself and obedience unto him, as is sufficient to guide us whilst we are here below, to steer our course in our subjection to him and dependence on him, in a manner acceptable unto him, and to bring us to our utmost end and blessedness in the enjoyment of him; — this Protest- ants think sufficient for them, who as they need not, so they desire not, to be wise above what is wiitten, nor to know more of God than he hath so revealed of himself, that they may know it. Those barren, fruitless speculations which some curious serpentine wits, casting off all reverence of the sovereignty and majesty of God, have exercised themselves in and about, even in things too high and hard for them, darkening counsel and wisdom by words of pretended subtilty, but real folly, are fitter to be exploded out of the world than fomented and cherished in the minds of men.
Nor doth that discourse about God and his essence, which lies before us, seem to grow on any other roots than ignorance and curi- osity: igTiorance of what it is that God requireth iis to know of him, and how; and curiosity in pr3dng into and using words about what we do not under,stand, nor is it the mind of God that we should. Were poor sinners thoroughly sensible of their own condition, and what acquaintance with God their concernment doth lie in, they would little value such vain towering imaginations as some men's minds are exercised withal. Come, sir, let us leave these vain flourishes, and, in deepest abasement of soul, pray that we may know how " the Father, whom no man hath seen at any time, is revealed by the only-begotten Son, who is in his bosom;" — what he is in his law towards impenitent sinners, what in the covenant of his grace to them that fly for refuge to the hope that is set before them; — even " that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of