Thomas Fuller, born at Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, in 1608, and educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, was first known in the Church as a popular preacher in his University town, and then became rector of Broad Winsor, in Dorsetshire. He began his career in literature with a poem in three parts upon "David's Heinous Sin, Hearty Repentance, and Heavy Punishment," and in 1640 he wrote an account of the Crusades as "A History of the Holy War," from which this is a passage, illustrating the change of opinion time had wrought touching Let us CRUSADES AND PILGRIMAGES TO JERUSALEM. Three things are necessary to make an invasive war lawful: the lawfulness of the jurisdiction, the merit of the cause, and the orderly and lawful prosecution of the cause. apply to our present purpose in this Holy War: for the first two, whether the jurisdiction the Christians pretended over the Turks' dominions was lawful or not; and, whether this war was not only opera, but vitæ pretium, worth the losing so many lives, we refer the reader to what hath been said in the first book. Only it will not be amiss to add a story or two out of an author of good account. When Charles the Sixth was King of France, the Duke of Brabant sailed over into Africa with a great army, there to fight against the Saracens. The Saracen Prince sent an herald to know of him the cause of his coming: the Duke answered, it was to revenge the death of Christ the Son of God, and true Prophet, whom they had unjustly crucified. The Saracens sent back their messengers again to demonstrate their innocency, how they were not Saracens, but Jews, which put Christ to death, and therefore that the Christians (if posterity should be punished for their predecessors' fault) should rather revenge themselves on the Jews which lived amongst them. Another relateth, that in the year of our Lord 1453, the great Turk sent a letter to the Pope, advertising him how he and his Turkish nation were not descended from the Jews, but from the Trojans, from whom also the Italians derive their pedigree, and so would prove himself akin to his Holiness. Moreover, he added, that it was both his and their duty to repair the ruins of Troy, and to revenge the death of their great-grandfather Hector, upon the Grecians; to which end, the Turk said he had already conquered a great part of Greece. As for Christ, he acknowledged him to have been a noble Prophet, and to have been crucified of the Jews, against whom the Christians might seek their remedy. These two stories I thought good to insert, because though of later date, and since the holy war in Palestine was ended, yet they have some reference thereunto, because some make that our quarrel to the Turks. But grant the Christians' right to the Turks' lands to be lawful, and the cause in itself enough deserving to ground a war upon, yet in the prosecution and managing thereof, many not only venial errors but inexcusable faults were committed; no doubt, the cause of the ill success. To omit the book called the Office of our Lady, made at the beginning of this war to procure her favourable assistance in it (a little manual, but full of blasphemies, in folio, thrusting her with importunate superstitions into God's throne, and forcing on her the glory of her Maker); superstition not only tainted the rind, but rotted the core of this whole action. Indeed, most of the pottage of that age tasted of that wild gourd. Yet far be it from us to condemn all their works to be dross, because debased and alloyed with superstitious intents. No doubt there was a mixture of much good metal in them, which God the good refiner knoweth how to sever, and then will crown and reward. But here we must distinguish betwixt those deeds which have some superstition in them, and those which in their nature are wholly superstitious, such as this voyage of people to Palestine was. what opinion had they of themselves herein, who thought that by dying in this war, they did make Christ amends for his death, as one saith, which if but a rhetorical flourish, yet doth hyperbolise into blasphemy. Yea, it was their very judgment, that hereby they did both merit and supererogate; and by dying for the Cross, cross the score of their own sins, and score up God for their debtor. But this flieth high, and therefore we leave it for others to follow. Let us look upon pilgrimages in general, and we shall find pilgrims wandering not so far from their own country as from the judgment of the ancient fathers. For We will leave our army at home, and only bring forth our champion. Hear what Gregory Nyssene saith, who lived in the fourth century, in which time voluntary pilgrimages first began; though before there were necessary pilgrims, forced to wander from their country by persecution. "Where," saith he, "our Lord pronounceth men blessed, he reckoneth not going to Jerusalem to be amongst those good deeds which direct to happiness." And afterwards, speaking of the going of single women in those long travels: "A woman," saith he, "cannot go such long journeys without a man to conduct her; and then whatsoever we may suppose, whether she hireth a stranger or hath a friend to wait on her, on neither side can she escape reproof, and keep the law of continency." Moreover, "If there were more divine grace in the places of Jerusalem, sin would not be so frequent and customary amongst those that lived there. Now there is no kind of uncleanness which there they dare not commit; malice, adultery, thefts, idolatry, poisonings, envies, and slaughters. But you will say unto me, If it be not worth the pains, why then did you go to Jerusalem? Let them hear, therefore, how I defend myself. I was appointed to go into Arabia to an holy council, held for the reforming of that Church; and Arabia being near to Jerusalem, I promised those that went with me, that I would go to Jerusalem to discourse with them which were presidents of the churches there; where matters were in a very troubled state, and they wanted one to be a mediator in their discords. We knew that Christ was a man born of a virgin, before we saw Bethlehem; we believed his resurrection from death, before we saw his sepulchre; we confessed his ascension into heaven, before we saw Mount Olivet. But we got so much profit by our journey, that by comparing them, we found our own more holy than those outward things. Wherefore you that fear God, praise him in what place you are. Change of place maketh not God nearer unto us; wheresoever thou art, God will come to thee, if the inn of thy soul be found such as the Lord may dwell and walk in thee," &c. A patron of pilgrimages not able to void the blow, yet willing to break the stroke of so pregnant and plain a testimony, thus seeketh to ward it: that indeed, pilgrimages are unfitting for women, yet fitting for men. But sure God never appointed such means to heighten devotion necessary thereunto, whereof the half of mankind, all women, are by their very creation made incapable. Secondly, he pleadeth, that it is lawful for secular and laymen to go on pilgrimages, but not for friars, who lived recluse in their cells, out of which they were not to come; and against such, saith he, is Nyssen's speech directed. But then, I pray, what was Peter, the leader of this long dance, but an hermit? and, if I mistake not, his profession was the very dungeon of the monastical prison, the strictest and severest of all other orders. And though there were not so many cowls as helmets in this war, yet always was the holy army well stocked with such cattle; so that on all sides it is confessed that the pilgrimages of such persons were utterly unlawful. Soon after the publication of this book, Fuller became lecturer to the Savoy Church in the Strand, where he was so popular a preacher that he is said to have had two audiences-one outside the church, and one in. Thomas Fuller was active on the king's side in the Civil War; he was presented to the living of Waltham, in 1648; in 1654, married a second wife-twelve or thirteen years after his first wife's death; and if he had not died of fever soon after the Restoration, he would have been made a bishop. Of his books, which are all ingenious and lively in their style, the most important are "The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of Jesus Christ until the year 1648," first published in 1655, and "The History of the Worthies of England," first published in the year after his death. John Howe, born in 1630, was the son of a clergyman. His father was persecuted in the reign of Charles I. for Puritan tendencies. John Howe went to Cambridge in 1647, and entered Milton's College-Christ's-as a sizar. In 1652, aged twentytwo, he was the Rev. John Howe, M.A., minister at Great Torrington, in Devonshire. His parish is set on a hill-top, in beautiful Devonshire scenery, the hills surrounding it in such a way as to have suggested a comparison with the site of Jerusalem. There he preached and prayed on special fast-days, with his people, from nine in the morning until four in the evening, taking only a quarter of an hour's rest. In 1654 he married a minister's daughter, and two years later, at the age of twenty-six, being in London, he went to Whitehall Chapel to see Cromwell. The The blessed apostle St. John only endeavours the strengthening of these two vital principles, faith in Christ and love to fellow-Christians, as may be seen at large in his epistles. These he presses, as the great commandments; upon the observation whereof he seems to account the safety and peace of the sincere did entirely depend. "This is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment," 1 Epistle iii. 23. He puts upon Christians no other distinguishing test, but "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God: and every one that loveth him. that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him" (chap. v. 1) is only solicitous that they did practise the commandment they had from the beginning-i.e. that they loved one another (2 Epist. verse 5), and that they did abide in the doctrine of Christ (verse 9). : The prudence and piety of those unerring guides of the Church (themselves under the certain guidance of the Spirit of truth), directed them to bring the things wherein they would have Christians unite, within as narrow a compass as was possible, neither multiplying articles of faith nor rites of worship. These two principles, as they were thought to answer the apostles, would fully answer our design and present enquiry. And we may adventure to say of them that they are both sufficient and necessary; the apt and the only means to heal and save us; such as would effect our cure, and without which nothing will. Nor shall I give other answer to the proposed questionthan what may be deduced from these two, considered according to what they are in themselves and what they naturally lead and tend unto. I shall consider them in the order wherein the Apostle here mentions them, who, you see, reserves the more important of them to the latter place. The sincere love of Christians to one another would be a happy means of preserving the truly Christian interest among us. That this may be understood, we must rightly apprehend what kind of love it is that is here meant. It is specified by what we find in conjunction with it, the understanding and acknowledgment of the mystery of Christianity. Therefore it must be the love of Christians to one another as such. Whence we collect, lest we too much extend the object of it on the one hand or contract it on the other, 1. That it is not the love only which we owe to one another as men, or human creatures merely, that is intended here. That were too much to enlarge it, as to our present consideration of it. For under that common notion, we should be as much obliged to love the enemies we are to unite against as the friends of religion we are to unite with, since all partake equally in human nature. It must be a more special love that shall have the desired influence in the present case. We cannot be peculiarly endeared and united to some more than to others upon a reason that is common to them with others. We are to love them that are born of God, and are his children, otherwise than the children of men, or such of whom it may be said they are of their father the devil; them that appear to have been partakers of a divine nature at another rate, than them who have received a mere human, or also the diabolical nature, 1 John v. 1. Yet this peculiar love is not to be exclusive of the other which is common, but must suppose it and be superadded to it, as the reason of it is superadded. For Christianity supposes humanity; and divine grace, human nature. 2. Nor is it a love to Christians of this or that party or denomination only. That were as much unduly to straiten and confine it. The love that is owing to Christians as such, as it belongs to them only, so it belongs to them who in profession and practice do own sincere and incorrupt Christianity. To limit our Christian love to a party of Christians, truly so called, is so far from serving the purpose now to be aimed at that it resists and defeats it; and instead of a preservative union infers most destructive divisions. It scatters what it should collect and gather. 'Tis to love factiously; and with an unjust love that refuses to give indifferently to every one his due: for is there no love due to a disciple of Christ in the name of a disciple? It is founded in falsehood, and a lie denies them to be of the Christian community who really are so. It presumes to remove the ancient land-marks, not civil but sacred, and draws on, not the people's curse only, but that of God himself. 'Tis true (and who doubts it?) that I may and ought upon special reasons to love some more than others; as relation, acquaintance, obligation by favours received from them, more eminent degrees of true worth, and real goodness: but that signifies nothing to the withholding of that love which is due to a Christian as such, as that also ought not to prejudice the love I owe to a man, as he is a man. Nor am I so promiscuously to distribute this holy love as to place it at random upon every one that thinks it convenient for him to call himself a Christian, though I ought to love the very profession, while I know not who sincerely make it, and do plainly see that Jews and Pagans were never worse enemies to Christ and his religion than a great part of the Christian world. But let my apprehensions be once set right concerning the true essentials of Christianity, whether consisting in doctrinal or vital principles; then will my love be duly carried to all in whom they are found under one common notion, which I come actually to apply to this or that person as particular occasions do occur, and so I shall always be in a preparation of mind, actually to unite in Christian love with every such person, whensoever such occasions do invite me to it. And do we now need to be told what such an impartial truly Christian love would do to our common preservation, and to prevent the ruin of the Christian interest? 1. How greatly would it contribute to the vigour of the Christian life! For so we should all equally "hold the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God;" as afterwards in this chapter (Coloss. ii. 19). Thus (as it is in that other parallel text of Scripture) "speaking the truth in love, we shall grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love," Eph. iv. 15, 16. Obstructions that hinder the free circulation of blood and spirits, do not more certainly infer languishings in the natural body, than the want of such a diffusive love shuts up and shrivels the destitute parts and hinders the diffusion of a nutritive vital influence in the body of Christ. 2. It would inspire Christians generally with a sacred courage and fortitude, when they should know and even feel themselves knit together in love. How doth the revolt of any considerable part of an army discourage the rest! or if they be not entire and of a piece! Mutual love animates them, as nothing more, when they are prepared to live and die together, and love hath before joined whom now their common danger also joins. They otherwise signify but as so many single persons, each one but caring and contriving how to shift for himself. Love makes them significant to one another, so as that every one understands himself to be the common care of all the rest. It makes Christians the more resolute in their adherence to truth and goodness when, from their not doubted love, they are sure of the help, the counsels, and prayers of the Christian community, and apprehend by their declining they shall grieve those whom they love, and who they know love them. If any imagine themselves intended to be given up as sacrifices to the rage of the common enemy, their hearts are the apter to sink, they are most exposed to temptations to prevaricate; and the rest will be apt to expect the like usage from them, if themselves be reduced to the like exigency and be liable to the same temptations. 3. It would certainly, in our present case, extinguish or abate the so contrary unhallowed fire of our anger and wrath towards one another, as the celestial beams do the baser culinary fire, which burns more fervently when the sun hath less power. Then would debates, if there must be any, be managed without intemperate heat. We should be remote from being angry that we cannot convey our own sentiments into another's mind; which when we are, our business is the more remote; we make ourselves less capable of reasoning |