The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, Part 4
Concerning PREACHING and PRAYER.
FIrst, I ask, are all Preaching and Praying amongst those that call themselves Christians? Ordinances and Institutions of Christ? Then the Popist Mass, and Jesuites and Friers Sermons are his Ordinances. The Ordinances of Christ are to be distinguished from all counterfeit imitations of them, by the spirit and way of performance, and by the matter that's delivered, as carrying its own evidence in the Consciences of the hearers, to be the very truth of God, 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 4. 2. and 5. 11. Satan will be found at last to have had the greatest hand in all such Ordinances, Praying, Preaching, and what ever else, that for spirit, manner and matter, are performed in a way of enmity and contradiction to the true spiritual believer and his more excellent way.
The usual practise of this Sufferer was to spend an hour or two every evening with his Family, or any other that were Providentially there, and as much both morning and evening on the first day. He was of that truly bounteous, princely, communicative spirit, noted in the Spouse, Cant. 7. 1. Rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, (1 Tim. 6. 18.) …to make manifest the savour of the knowledge of Christ (that himself had deep and large experience of) in every place, 2 Cor. 2. 14. His gravity, purity, and chastness of spirit was very exemplary. He held out in the midest of all the late Apostacies and Changes. He was stedfast and unmovable, alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord, and his labour was not in vain… as he well knew, 1 Cor. …5. 51. So assiduous was he in continual searching of the Scriptures, waiting upon the Lord in Faith and Prayer, for more full discoveries of his mind therein, that it was faid of him, Put him where you will, if he may have but a Bible, he is well enough; as Iansen, (of whom the Iansenists in France) reckoned himself with Austin.
But what can be said for his Allegorizing the Scriptures? Here's another Branch of this Sufferers Charge from men, wherein he shares with the learned Origen.
The Charge against Allegorists, usually runs at this rate; That by Allegorizing the Scriptures, they carry them quite out of their native significancy and intendment, wresting and forcing all to their own purpose and conceit, and so frame Divinity Romances, what Conclusions, and Bodies of discourse they please. To this miscarriage, men of the most …oaring, curious and searching capacities are reputed most liable. Jesuite, masked Papist, no title is thought bad enough for such men, by their ignorant adversaries, in their blind zeal.
We have but fragments of Origen, (that famous Allegorizer, and diligent Searcher of the Scriptures) and those, translated out of Greek into Latin, and handed to us by his enemies; so that it may seem dubious, when we read the small remains of his thousands of Books, whether we read the genuine Issues of his Contemplation, or the spurious Interpolations of some other man. 'Tis agreed on all hands by friends and foes, that he was a person of more than ordinary tallness in Understanding, and that he did fairly offer at a more pertinent disquisition into the whole bulk of intelligibles, Divine or Philosophical, than was usual. And how was he handled? what said they of him? That he was a temeratious, daring Fanatick, quitting the plain truths of Scripture, and bewildring himself and followers in diabolical Phantasms, being perverted through his great learning, on which account he was oft persecuted and dragg'd along the streets.