ceive what was spoken both by them, and by their antagonists, as spoken to wise men, to weigh and judge what was said. We are doubtless now, when the ferment of disputation is over, in a better situation for judging coolly and equitably of the merits of those extraordinary preachers, than the people who lived in that age. And upon the most deliberate examination, I believe the unprejudiced will admit, that, with all their imperfections, they did unspeakable service to the inte rests of knowledge, of christianity, and of human liberty. Having said so much of their talents and virtues, I shall, with all the deference due to the judgment of my hearers, offer a few things in regard to their defects and blemishes, particularly considered as teachers. The first I shall observe is an unavoidable consequence of the education they had received, and the habits to which they were inured; a sort of metaphysical reasoning, or rather sophistry, the genuine spawn of the scholastick logick, which had for ages been in vogue, and which, in some measure, tainted all their disputes. This led them to dogmatize on every point, and was that which first produced dissension among themselves. As long as they confined their declamation to church tyranny, to the correction of superstitious and idolatrous practices, to those clerical artifices for enhancing power and wealth, which were subversive of sound morality, they concurred harmoniously in every thing; but no sooner did they enter on the endless and unprofitable discussion of abstruse and unedifying questions, of which holy writ has either said nothing, or given no decision, than their harmony was at an end. They subdivided immediately. They alarmed those who were inclined to think favourably of their cause. They made many retreat who had made advances. They supplied their enemies with arms against them, and made enemies of friends; inasmuch as many became enemies one to another. Then arose the distinctions of Lutheran, and Zuinglian, and Calvinist, and Sacramentarian, and Ubiquitarian: the first three as implying not barely the disciples of such particular teachers, but as the partisans of different systems. By this conduct, also, they furnished an argument to the common enemy, to which I do not find that any sect has yet given a satisfactory reply. "If these “nice and abstract questions," said the Romanist, "about which you make so great a bustle, are really so essential to salva"tion, as you pretend, it is impossible that the scriptures can "be so perspicuous as you account them, else you would ne"ver, after a careful examination, entertain sentiments so "opposite in regard to those questions." What made the impropriety of their conduct more flagrant, was, that they did not treat those differences in opinion as matters of small moment, as curious speculations with which the pious and con templative might amuse themselves, but on which, without affecting their christian character, persons might think differ ently. Far otherwise; they treated them as equally fundamental with those which they made the subject of their decla mations against the common foe; and were often transported with equal fury against one another, on account of those dif ferences, as they were against him. "You all appeal” (said Erasmus, whom they wanted to gain, and who at first appear ed favourable, being as much an enemy to superstition and ecclesiastick tyranny as any of them, you all appeal, said hey "to the pure word of God, whereof you think yourselves true "interpreters. Agree then amongst yourselves about its "meaning, before you pretend to give law to the world." "It is of importance," said Calvin, in a letter to his friend? Melancthon, that no suspicion of the divisions which are amongst us descend to future ages; for it is ridiculous besl "yond imagination, that, after having broken with all the "world, we should, from the beginning of our reformation, agree so ill amongst ourselves." Indeed, this bad agree ment, as it was a great stumbling-block in the way of those, who inclined to examine the matter to the bottom, so it prov ed a greater check to the cause of the reformers, than any which the open or the secret assaults of their enemies had yet, either by spiritual weapons, or by carnal, been able to give it. But unfortunately, (for the truth ought, without respect of persons, to be spoken) they had not sufficiently purged their own minds from the old leaven; they still retained too much of the spirit of that corrupt church which they had left. As they were men, we ought to form a judgment of them not on ly with candour, but with all the lenity to which their educa-s tion, the circumstances of the times, the difficulties they had to surmount, and the adversaries, they had to encounter, so justly entitle them. But as they were teachers of religion, we ought to be at least as careful not to allow an excessive ve neration for their great and good qualities, to mislead us into a respect for their errours, or to adopt implicitly the system of any one of them; that we must learn not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of us be puffed up for one against another. The spirit of the church, especially that nourished in the cloisters, was a spirit of wrangling and altercation. Never could any thing better suit the unimportant and undeterminable questions there canvassed by the recluses, than the words of the apostle, vain janglings and oppositions of science falsely so called. As therefore they had not avoided these, nor taken the apostolical warning not to dote about questions and strifes of words, they soon experienced in themselves, and in their followers, the truth of the apostolical prediction, that envy, contention, railings, evil surmisings, and perverse disputings, would come of them; but that they would never minister to the edifying of themselves in love; that so far would their disputations be from answering the end, and terminating their differences, that they would incessantly give birth to new questions, and would increase unto more ungodliness. This contentious spirit, derived from the schoolmen, and commonly accompanied with spiritual pride, and a vitiated understanding, did not fail of producing its usual consequences, uncharitableness in judging of others, on account of difference of opinion, and intolerance in the manner of treating them. Of the first of these, the evidences are coeval with the questions, and perfectly unequivocal; and of the last, that is, of the intolerant spirit they had retained of the church they had deserted, it must not be dissembled, that they gave but too manifest proofs as soon as they had power. You will do me the justice to believe me, when I add, that it proceeds not from any pleasure in depreciating, that I have taken so much of the invidious task of exposing the blemishes in those truly meritorious characters. But of men so much exposed to publick view, and so highly distinguishable, as were our reformers from popery, there is a considerable danger on either side in forming a wrong judgment. One is, indeed, that a prejudice against the instruments may endanger our contracting a prejudice against the cause. Of this extreme, in this protestant country, I imagine, we are in little danger. To prevent it, however, their faults ought not to be mentioned without doing justice to their virtues. The other is, lest a prepossession in favour of the cause prove the source of a blind devotion to the instruments. Of this extreme, the danger here is, I think, very great. Nay, though different men's attention, according to their various circumstances, has been fixed on different instruments in the hand of providence, in effecting the wonderful revolution then brought about, yet an immoderate attachment to one, or other, has been, since the beginning, the rock on which the far greater part of protes tants have split. Ddd |