as they will be governed. If you dispute, you gain, it may be, one, and lose five; but if ye threaten them with damnation, you keep them in fetters; for they that are in fear of death, are all their life-time in bondage'* (saith the Apostle :) and there is in the world nothing so potent as fear of the two deaths, which are the two arms and grapples of iron by which the church of Rome takes and keeps her timorous or conscientious proselytes. The easy Protestant calls upon you from scripture to do your duty, to build a holy life upon a holy faith, the faith of the Apostles and first disciples of our Lord; he tells you if you err, and teaches ye the truth; and if ye will obey it is well, if not, he tells you of your sin, and that all sin deserves the wrath of God; but judges no man's person, much less any states of men. He knows that God's judgments are righteous and true; but he knows also, that his mercy absolves many persons, who, in his just judgment, were condemned: and if he had a warrant from God to say, that he should destroy all the papists, as Jonas had concerning the Heb. ii. 15.

Ninevites; yet he remembers that every repentance, if it be sincere, will do more, and prevail greater, and last longer than God's anger will. Besides these things, there is a strange spring, and secret principle in every man's understanding, that it is oftentimes turned about by such impulses, of which no man can give an account. But we all remember a most wonderful instance of it, in the disputation between the two Reynolds's, John and William; the former of which being a Papist, and the latter a Protestant, met and disputed, with a purpose to confute, and to convert each other. And so they did for those arguments, which were used, prevailed fully against their adversary, and yet did not prevail with themselves. The Papist turned Protestant, and the Protestant became a Papist, and so remained to their dying day. Of which some ingenious person gave a most handsome account in the following excellent Epigram,

Bella, inter geminos, plusquam civilia, fratres
Traxerat ambiguus Religionis apex.

Ille reformatæ fidei propartibus instat:
Iste reformandam denegat esse fidem.

Propositis causæ rationibus; alter utrinque
Concurrere pares, et cecidêre pares.
Quod fuit in votis, fratrem capit alter uterq;
Quod fuit in fatis, perdit uterque fidem.
Captivi gemini sine captivante fuerunt,

Et victor victi transfuga castra petit.
Quod genus hoc pugnæ est, ubi vietus gaudet uterq;
Et tamen alteruter se superâsse dolet?

But further yet, he considers the natural and regular infirmities of mankind; and God considers them much more; he knows that in man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance and weakness; his prejudice, and the infallible certainty of being deceived in many things: he sees, that wicked men, oftentimes know much more than many very good men; and that the understanding is not of itself considerable in morality, and effects nothing in rewards and punishments: it is the will only that rules man, and can obey God. He sees and deplores it, that many men study hard, and understand little; that they dispute earnestly, and understand not one another at all; that affections creep so certainly, and mingle with their arguing, that the argument VOL. II.

M

is lost, and nothing remains but the conflict of two adversaries affections; that a man is so willing, so easy, so ready to believe what makes for his opinion, so hard to understand an argument against himself, that it is plain, it is the principle within, not the argument without, that determines him. He observes also that all the world (a few individuals excepted) are unalterably determined to the religion of their country, of their family, of their society; that there is never any considerable change made, but what is made by war and empire, by fear and hope. He remembers that it is a rare thing, to see a Jesuit of the Dominican opinion; or a Dominican (until of late) of the Jesuit; but every order gives laws to the understanding of their novices, and they never change. He considers there is such ambiguity in words, by which all Lawgivers express their meaning; that there is such abstruseness in mysteries of religion, that some things are so much too high for us, that we cannot understand them rightly; and yet they are so sacred, and concerning, that men will think they are bound to look into them, as far as they can; that

it is no wonder if they quickly go too far, where no understanding, if it were fitted for it, could go far enough; but in these things it will be bard not to be deceived; since our words cannot rightly express those things. That there is such variety of human understandings, that men's faces differ not so much as their souls; and that if there were not so much difficulty in things, yet they could not but be variously apprehended by several men. And hereto he considers, that in twenty opinions, it may be that not one of them is true; nay, whereas Varro reckoned, that among the old Philosophers there were eight hundred opinions concerning the summum bonum, that yet not one of them hit the right. He sees also that in all religions, in all societies, in all families, and in all things, opinions differ; and since opinions are too often begot by passion, by passions and violence they are kept; and every man is too apt to overvalue his own opinion; and out of a desire that every man should conform his judgement to his that teaches,. men are apt to be earnest in their persuasion, and overact the proposition; and from being true as he sup