A Defense of the Principles of Love, Part 2 · Exception 30
EXCEPT. XXX. Answered. Y… say [May we not justly suspect that to be bad in the worship of God, which the wicked sort do love?] Answ. I spake not of [what they love, but, what they are for;] This change of my words is unrighteous. I only advised men not to reject a good cause, because it is owned by some (or most bad persons.) And why did you not answer my instance of the Pharisees long prayers? We have had many Religious persons or sects that have of late been some against▪ Infant Baptisme, some against singing Psalmes, some against Ministry, and Church-meetings, and some against Sacraments, and instituted Ordinances, and some against Tythes and Universities, and humane Learning; (And Mr. Norton of New England told me, that with them, A Church separated from a Church, or was gathered out of it, rejecting their Pastors, and choosing unlearned men, and would receive and endure none that had humane Learning; and that Moses and Aaron (as his words were) Magistrates and Ministers went down on their knees to them with tears, and could not move them to relent unto unity, or to receive a learned Minister, nor get any answer from them, but [that is your judgement, and this is ours.] I speak his very words as neer as I can possibly, spoken to old Mr. Ash and me, before his (yet living) companion Mr. Broadstreet a Magistrate of New England.) Now all this the common people are against. Must we therefore be against Magistrates, Ministers, Ordinances, and all, because the common people are for them. How commonly are they against the Quakers, and the Familists, and the Infidels, and Heathens, and (with us) the Papists? Are all these therefore in the right? Let any Familist deny the Scripture, or the immortality of the soul, and the common people will be against them. Must we deny God and Christ because we live in a land where they are owned?
Brother, consider, 1. That some truths the light of nature teacheth all. 2. And some common illumination teacheth multitudes of bad men. 3. And some good education, and the tradition of their fathers, and the Laws of the Countrey teacheth.
4. And some are better persons among those that you separate from, than many are that separate from them. Let not us then be bad, and more erroneous than those whom you account the worse, and all because they are no worse.
The Text which you wish me to read on my knees, I have done so, and I thank you for that advice; but I answer not your hope of retracting what I have written (in that,) but contrarily, 1. On my knees I pray God to forgive you such abuse of Scripture. 2. And to give you a sounder mind. For the Text speaketh of Infidels, or denyers of Christs incarnation, and maketh this the differencing Character, [Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus is come in the flesh is of God; and so on the contrary. But are all these Christians that you plead for separation from, and charge with Idolatry, Infidels, and denyers of Christ? And all the Churches on earth that use a Liturgie? O brother, you use not Scripture, o… the Church aright. We grant that in professed Christians also, the carnal mind is enmity to God, and they that are most carnal, are likest to reject the truth; But ye… we would not wish you to measure Truth by the quality of the Receiver: For Christ is truly Christ, though many workers of iniquity shall say, we have prophesied in thy name: Many hereticks have been strict and temperate, when the greater part of the Orthodox have been too loose: Yet that did not prove the Christian doctrine to be false.