lify'd; and which is wors, the Freedom of Learning must groan again, and to her old fetters: all this the Parlament yet sitting. Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them, that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at: instead of suppressing sects and schisms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation: The punishing of wits enhaunces their autority, saith the Vicount St. Albans3; and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certain spark of Truth that flies up in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out. This Order therefore may " his time and labour and gets no more hurt by them. Some “think the Truth will not thrive among us, till every man have "leave to speak both in Presse and Pulpit that please: GOD for“bid that we should ever see that day! If ten men's voyces be "louder than one, then would the noyse of Errour drown the "voyce of Truth: Ignorance is usually clamorous and loud, but "Truth is modest, though zealous : One orthodox faithfull "Teacher, would scarce be seen or finde room for the crowd of "seducers: For the godly, compared with the ungodly, are "not near so few as the men of clear understanding, in compa"rison of the ignorant: And they are most forward to speake, "that know least." Caret Tit. 12mo. 1648. The Prelats might remember them, &c.] See ILLUSTRATION, N. 5 The punishing of wits enhaunces their autority, saith the Vicount St. Albans.] Autority" may be in the Latin sense for Reputation.-Lord Bacon translated this apophthegm from Tacitus: "Quò magis socordiam eorum inridere libet, qui præsenti po"tentiâ credunt exstingui posse etiam sequentis ævi memoriam. "Nam contrà, punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas."-Annal. I. IV. 35. prove a nursing mother to sects, but I shall easily shew how it will be a step-dame to Truth: and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already. Well knows he who uses to consider, that our Faith and Knowledge thrive by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a Heretick in the Truth; and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so, or the Assembly so determins, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very Truth he holds, becomes his Heresie. There is not A man may be a Heretick in the Truth; and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so, or the Assembly so determins without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very Truth he holds, becomes his Heresie.] Before theological Disputants gave it a technical appropriation to what each deemed the pravities of Heterodoxy in his opponent, 'Alperis implied the opinion an individual had taken up on any subject; it bore no reference to its Truth nor to its Falsehood; and as little to peculiar, or to perverted notions of religious belief. "In ista ipsa zipéra metuo ne plus nervorum "sit," &c. writes Cicero; Epist. ad Div. l. 15. ep. 16. Our Authour now reverts to this original and absolute import; as Ben Jonson had previously:-" are you in that good "Heresie? I mean opinion." The Sad Shepherd; A. I. S. 5. The drift of this seemingly paradoxical reasoning is in simpler terms "Though any man's religious opinions happen to be or"thodox, still are they heretical when adopted without his own "examination of their proper evidence." Consult further his Treatise" of Civil Power in ecclesiastical Causes," where MILTON any burden that som would gladlier post off to another, then the charge and care of their Religion. There be, who knows not that there be? of Protestants and Professors who live and dye in as arrant an implicit faith, as any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his draws this distinction a second time, and opens his meaning more clearly: Pr. W. I. 549. ed. 1738. But is not this recurrence to the original acceptation, when it has been superseded by an accidental application, injudicious and faulty? It looks too much like an ambitious display of Learning. Thus to give a word a twofold signification; to set it in opposition with itself; now to be understood in its radical, and now in an acquired sense, savours more of conceit than of argument. Surely we should avoid every practice which adds to the instability or to the uncertainty of Language; and such fluctuations, since they render the meaning of words precarious and indefinite, must needs lead to ambiguity. "Protestants and Professors.] They who affected a sanctimonious observance of religious duties were then called Professors. This the examples following abundantly ascertain: "A Diocese in which there were as many strict Professors of Religion (commonly called Puritans) as in any part of Eng"land." May; Hist. of the Parl. p. 55. 4to. And Fr. Quarles: "There's many Libertines, for one Professour, "'Mong whom there often lurks a Ilypocrite." Divine Poems; p. 67. 12mo. 1630. Again; it is related in the Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, that his Father left him "at bord in a very religious house, where "new superstitions and pharisaical holiness, straining at gnatts "and swallowing camels, gave him a little disgust, and was "awhile a stumbling block in his way of purer profession, when " he saw among professors such unsuitable miscarriages." p. 32. 4to. 1806. toyling, and to profits, finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mys teries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he doe? fain he would have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he therefore, but resolvs to give over find himself out som factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; som Divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole ware-house of his Religion, with all the locks and keyes into his custody; and indeed makes the very person of that man his Religion; esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say his Religion is now no more within himself, but is becom a dividuall movable, and goes and comes neer him3, according as that good man frequents His Religion is now no more within himself, but is becom a dividuall movable, and goes and comes neer him.] Dividual is divisible: "Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher, X. 24. edit. 1778. Here Seward, thinking dividual destroyed the sense, gave individual; and so made the text speak just the reverse of what the dramatic Poets intended. Individual is inseparable, indivisible, as in Tetrachordon: "His Tautology also of indissoluble and individual, is not to be imitated." p. 20. 4to. 1645. " K the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his Religion comes home at night, praies, is liberally supt, and sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the Malmsey, or some well spic't bruage, and better breakfasted then He whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem; his Religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his Religion. 9 After the Malmsey, or some well-spic't bruage, and better breakfasted.] Ben Jonson had characteriz'd the Puritan Minister, Zealot of the Land Busy's sumptuous fare at his Patroness's by much the same sort of description: :-"fast by the teeth i' "the cold Turkye-pye i' the Cupboard, with a great white Loaf " on his left hand, and a Glass of Malmsey on his right." Bartholomew Fair. A. 1. S. 6. From MILTON's representation of the usual morning repast in a family of staid and sanctimonious manners, we may gather the improved habits of life as to Temperance which have taken place since his days. Such beverage if now set at all on the Breakfast Table is only for the Fox-hunter before he goes out to the chase. Spiced Liquors for a long space of time were among the luxuries of our Ancestours. Froissart, as I recollect, mentions, that the Black Prince after the Battle of Poitiers, among other courtesies presented his prisoner, the King of France, with a cup of Wine and Spices. And a Poet, our Authour's contemporary, asks, "What though some have a fraught "Of Cloves and Nutmegs, and in Cinnamon sail ? "If thou hast wherewithall to spice a draught, "When griefs prevail." Herbert; the Temple, p. 131. 12mo. 1641. |