V. But so easy it is for every man living to err, and so hard to wrest from any man’s mouth the plain acknowledgment of error, that what hath been once inconsiderately defended, the same is commonly persisted in, as long as wit by whetting itself is able to find out any shift, be it never so slight, whereby to escape out of the hands of present contradiction. So that it cometh herein to pass with men unadvisedly fallen into error, as with them whose state hath no ground to uphold it, but only the help which by subtle conveyance they draw out of casual events arising from day to day, till at length they be clean spent. They which first gave out, that “nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded by the word of God,” thought this principle plainly warranted by the manifest words of the Law1, “Ye shall put nothing unto the word which I command you, neither shall you take aught therefrom, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you.” Wherefore having an eye to a number of rites and orders in the Church of England, as marrying with a ring, crossing in the one sacrament, kneeling at the other, observing of festival days moe than only that which is called the Lord’s day, enjoining abstinence at certain times from some kinds of meat, churching of women after childbirth, degrees taken by divines in universities, sundry church offices, dignities, and callings, for which they found no commandment in the Holy Scripture, they thought by the one only stroke of that axiom to have cut them off. But that which they took for an oracle being sifted was repelled. True it is concerning the word of God, whether it be by misconstruction of the sense or by falsification of the words, wittingly to endeavour that any thing may seem divine which is not, or any thing not seem which is, were plainly to abuse, and even to falsify divine evidence; which injury offered but unto men, is most worthily counted heinous. Which point I wish they did well observe, with whom nothing is more familiar than to plead in these causes, “the law of God,” “the word of the Lord;” who notwithstanding when they come to allege what word and what law they mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some historical narration or other, and to urge them as if they were written in most exact form of law. What is to add to the law of God if this be not? When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we construe2 without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended; do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem moe than they are? It standeth us upon to be careful in this case. For the sentence of God is heavy against them that wittingly shall presume thus to use the Scripture3.
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Footnotes
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“Whatsoever I command you, take heed you do it. Thou shalt put nothing thereto, nor take aught therefrom.” Deut. iv. 2. and xii. 32. [Adm. p. 3. See also Answ. 59, 60, 61. T. C. i. 21, 22. Eccl. Disc. fol. 5.] ↩
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[“conster,” and so viii. 1. IV. xi. 7. and elsewhere, 1st ed. but not uniformly.] 1886. ↩
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[Rev. xxii. 18.] ↩