1. Another piece of nonconformity to the world, which is our
simple and plain speech, thou for you.--2. Justified from the
use of words and numbers, singular and plural.--3. It was,
and is the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin speech, in schools and
universities.--4. It is the language of all nations.--5. The
original of the present customs defends our disuse of it.--6.
If custom should prevail, in a sense it would be on our
side.--7. It cannot be uncivil or improper, for God himself,
the fathers, prophets, Christ, and his apostles used it.--8. An
instance given in the case of Peter, in the palace of the high
priest.--9. It is the practice of men to God in their prayers:
the pride of man to expect better to himself.--10. Testimonies
of several writers in vindication of us.--11. The Author's
convictions; and his exhortation to his reader.
I. There is another piece of our nonconformity to the world, that
renders us very clownish to the breeding of it, and that is, _thou_
for _you_, and that without difference or respect to persons: a
thing that to some looks so rude it cannot well go down without
derision or wrath. But as we have the same original reason for
declining this, as the foregoing customs, so I shall add, what to me
looks reasonable in our defence; though it is very probable height
of mind, in some of those that blame us, will very hardly allow them
to believe that the word reasonable is reconcileable with so silly a
practice as this is esteemed.
II. Words of themselves are but as so many marks set and employed
for necessary and intelligible mediums, or means, whereby men may
understandingly express their minds and conceptions to each other:
from whence comes conversation. Now, though the world be divided
into many nations, each of which, for the most part, has a peculiar
language, speech, or dialect, yet have they ever concurred in the
same numbers and persons, as much of the ground of right speech.
For instance; _I love_, _thou lovest_, _he loveth_, are of singular
number, importing but one whether in the first, second, or third
person: also _we love_, _ye love_, _they love_, are of the plural
number, because in each is implied more than one. Which undeniable
grammatical rule, might be enough to satisfy any, that have not
forgotten their accidence, that we are not beside reason in our
practice. For if _thou lovest_, be singular, and _you love_, be
plural; and if _thou lovest_, signifies but one; and _you love_,
many; is it not as proper to say, _thou lovest_, to ten men, as to
say, _you love_, to _one_ man? Or, why not, _I love_, for _we love_;
and _we love_, instead of _I love_? Doubtless it is the same, though
most improper, and in speech ridiculous.
III. Our next reason is; if it be improper or uncivil speech, as
termed by this vain age, how comes it that the Hebrew, Greek, and
Roman authors, used in schools and universities, have no other? Why
should they not be a rule in that, as well as other things? And why,
I pray then, are we so ridiculous for being thus far grammatical? Is
it reasonable that children should be whipped at school for putting
you for thou, as having made false Latin; and yet that we must be,
though not whipped, reproached, and often abused, when we use the
contrary propriety of speech?
IV. But in the third place, it is neither improper nor uncivil,
but much otherwise; because it is used in all languages, speeches,
and dialects, and that through all ages. This is very plain: as
for example, it was God's language when he first spake to Adam,
viz. Hebrew: also it is the Assyrian, Chaldean, Grecian and Latin
speech. And now among the Turks, Tartars, Muscovites, Indians,
Persians, Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Germans, Polonians,
Swedes, Danes, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, as well as English there is
a distinction preserved, and the word _thou_ is not lost in the
word which goes for _you_. And though some of the modern tongues
have done as we do, yet upon the same error. But by this it is
plain, that _thou_ is no upstart, nor yet improper, but the only
proper word to be used in all languages to a single person;
because otherwise all sentences, speeches, and discourses may be
very ambiguous, uncertain, and equivocal. If a jury pronounce a
verdict or a judge a sentence, three being at the bar, upon three
occasions, very differently culpable, and should say, You are here
guilty and to die; or innocent, and discharged: who knows who is
guilty or innocent? May be but one, perhaps two; or it may be, all
three: therefore our indictments run in the singular number, as
Hold up thy hand: thou art indicted by the name of, &c., for that
thou, not having the fear of God, &c. And it holds the same in
all conversation. Nor can this be avoided but by many unnecessary
circumlocutions. And as the preventing of such length and obscurity
was doubtless the first reason for the distinction, so cannot that
be justly disused till the reason be first removed; which can never
be whilst two are in the world.
V. But this is not all; it was first ascribed in way of flattery to
proud popes and emperors, imitating the heathens' vain homage to
their gods; thereby ascribing a plural honour to a single person:
as if one pope had been made up of many gods, and one emperor of
many men; for which reason, _you_ only to be used to many, became
first spoken to one. It seems the word _thou_ looked like too lean
and thin a respect; and therefore, some bigger than they should
be, would have a style suitable to their own ambition: a ground
we cannot build our practice on; for what began it only loves it
still. But supposing _you_ to be proper to a prince, it will not
follow it is to a common person. For his edict runs, _We will and
require_, because, perhaps, in conjunction with his council: and
therefore _you_ to a private person is an abuse of the word. But as
pride first gave it birth, so hath she only promoted it. Monsieur,
sir, and madam, were originally names given to none but the king,
his brother, and their wives, both in France and England; yet now
the ploughman in France is called monsieur, and his wife madame: and
men of ordinary trades in England, sir, and their wives, dame; which
is the legal title of a lady, or else mistress, which is the same
with madame in French. So prevalent hath pride and flattery been in
all ages, the one to give and the other to receive respects, as they
term it.
VI. But some will tell us, custom should rule us; and that is
against us. But it is easily answered, and more truly, that though
in things reasonable or indifferent, custom is obliging or harmless,
yet in things unreasonable or unlawful, she has no authority. For
custom can no more change numbers than genders, nor yoke _one_
and _you_ together, than make a man into a woman, or one into a
thousand. But if custom be to conclude us, it is for us; for as
custom is nothing more than ancient usage, I appeal to the practice
of mankind, from the beginning of the world, through all nations,
against the novelty of this confusion, viz. _you_ to one person. Let
custom, which is ancient practice and fact, issue this question.
Mistake me not: I know words are nothing, but as men give them a
value or force by use; but then, if you will discharge _thou_, and
that _you_ must succeed in its place, let us have a distinguishing
word instead of _you_ to be used in speech to many: but to use the
same word for one and many, when there are two, and that only to
please a proud and haughty humour in man, is not reasonable in our
sense: which we hope is Christian, though not modish.
VII. But if _thou_ to a single person be improper or uncivil, God
himself, all the holy fathers and prophets, Christ Jesus, and his
apostles, the primitive saints, all languages throughout the world,
and our own law proceedings are guilty; which, with submission, were
great presumption to imagine. Besides, we all know it is familiar
with most of our authors to preface their discourses to the reader
in the same language of thee and thou: as, Reader, thou art desired,
&c. Or, Reader, this is written to inform thee of the occasion,
&c. And it cannot be denied, that the most famous poems, dedicated
to love or majesty, are written in this style. Read of each in
Chaucer, Spenser, Waller, Cowley, Dryden, &c. Why then should it be
so homely, ill-bred, and insufferable in us? This, I conceive, can
never be answered.
VIII. I doubt not at all that something altogether as singular
attended the speech of Christ and his disciples: for I remember it
was urged upon Peter in the high priest's palace, as a proof of his
belonging to Jesus, when he denied his Lord: "Surely," said they,
"thou art also one of them: for thy speech bewrayeth thee." (Matt.
xxvi. 73.) They had guessed by his looks but just before that he had
been with Jesus; but when they discoursed with him, his language put
them all out of doubt: surely then he was one of them, and he had
been with Jesus. Something it was he had learned in his company that
was odd and observable; to be sure, not of the world's behaviour.
Without question, the garb, gait, and speech of his followers
differed, as well as his doctrine, from the world; for it was a part
of his doctrine it should be so. It is easy to believe they were
more plain, grave, and precise, which is more credible from the way
which poor, confident, fearful Peter took to disguise the business;
for he fell to cursing and swearing--a sad shift. But he thought
that the likeliest way to remove the suspicion, that was most unlike
Christ. And the policy took; for it silenced their objections, and
Peter was as orthodox as they. But though they found him not out,
the cock's crow did; which made Peter remember his dear suffering
Lord's words: and he went forth, and wept bitterly; that he had
denied his Master, who was then delivered up to die for him.
IX. But our last reason is of most weight with me, and because
_argumentum ad hominem_, it is most heavy with our despisers, which
is this: it should not therefore be urged upon us, because it is a
most extravagant piece of pride in a mortal man to require or expect
from his fellow-creature a more civil speech or grateful language,
than he is wont to give to the immortal God and his Creator in all
his worship to him. Art thou, O man, greater than he that made thee?
Canst thou approach the God of thy breath and great Judge of thy
life with _thou_ and _thee_, and when thou risest off thy knees,
scorn a Christian for giving to thee, poor mushroom of the earth,
no better language than thou hast given to God but just before? An
arrogancy not to be easily equalled! But again, it has either too
much or too little respect; if too much, do not reproach and be
angry, but gravely and humbly refuse it; if too little, why dost
thou show to God no more? O whither is man gone! To what a pitch
does he soar! He would be used more civilly by us than he uses God;
which is to have us make more than a God of him: but he shall want
worshippers of us, as well as he wants the divinity in himself
that deserves to be worshipped. Certain we are, that the Spirit
of God seeks not these respects, much less pleads for them, or
would be wroth with any that conscientiously refuse to give them.
But that this vain generation is guilty of using them, to gratify
a vain mind, is too palpable. What capping, what cringing, what
scraping, what vain, unmeant words, most hyperbolical expressions,
compliments, gross flatteries, and plain lies, under the name of
civilities, are men and women guilty of in conversation! Ah! my
friends! whence fetch you these examples? What part of all the
writings of the holy men of God warrants these things? But, to
come nearer to your own profession, is Christ your example herein,
whose name you pretend to bear; or those saints of old that lived
in desolate places, of whom the world was not worthy: (Heb. xi.
38:) or do you think you follow the practice of those Christians
that, in obedience to their Master's life and doctrine, forsook the
respect of persons, and relinquished the fashions, honour, and glory
of this transitory world; whose qualifications lay not in external
gestures, respects, and compliments, but in a meek and quiet spirit,
(1 Pet. iii. 4,) adorned with temperance, virtue, modesty, gravity,
patience, and brotherly kindness; which were the tokens of true
honour, and only badges of respect and nobility in those Christian
times? O no. But is it not to expose ourselves both to your contempt
and fury, that we imitate them, and not you? And tell us, pray, are
not romances, plays, masks, gaming, fiddlers, &c. the entertainments
that most delight you? Had you the spirit of Christianity indeed,
could you consume your most precious little time in so many
unnecessary visits, games, and pastimes; in your vain compliments,
courtships, feigned stories, flatteries, and fruitless novelties,
and what not; invented and used to your diversion, to make you easy
in your forgetfulness of God: which never was the Christian way of
living, but entertainment of the heathens that knew not God? Oh!
were you truly touched with a sense of your sins, and in any measure
born again; did you take up the cross of Jesus and live under it,
these, which so much please your wanton and sensual nature, would
find no place with you. This is not seeking the things that are
above, (Col. iii. 1,) to have the heart thus set on things that are
below; nor working out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
to spend your days in vanity. This is not crying with Elihu, "I
know not to give flattering titles to men; for in so doing my Maker
would soon take me away." This is not to deny self, and lay up a
more hidden and enduring substance, an eternal inheritance in the
heavens, that will not pass away. Well, my friends, whatever you
think, your plea of custom will find no place at God's tribunal:
the light of Christ in your own hearts will overrule it; and this
Spirit, against which we testify, shall then appear to be what we
say it is. Say not I am serious about slight things; but beware you
of levity in serious things.
X. Before I close, I shall add a few testimonies from men of
general credit, in favour of our nonconformity to the world in this
particular.
Luther, the great reformer, whose sayings were oracles with the
age he lived in, and of no less reputation now, with many that
object against us, was so far from condemning our plain speech,
that in his Ludus, he sports himself with _you_ to a single person
as an incongruous and ridiculous speech, viz. _Magister, vos estis
iratus?_ Master, are you angry? As absurd with him in Latin, as My
masters, art thou angry? is in English. Erasmus, a learned man,
and an exact critic in speech, than whom I know not any we may so
properly refer the grammar of the matter to, not only derides it,
but bestows a whole discourse upon rendering it absurd: plainly
manifesting that it is impossible to preserve numbers if _you_, the
only word for more than one, be used to express _one_: as also, that
the original of this corruption was the corruption of flattery.
Lipsius affirms of the ancient Romans, "That the manner of greeting
now in vogue was not in use amongst them." To conclude: Howel,
in his History of France, gives us an ingenious account of its
original; where he not only assures us, "That anciently the peasants
thou'd their kings, but that pride and flattery first put inferiors
upon paying a plural respect to the single person of every superior,
and superiors upon receiving it." And though we had not the practice
of God and man so undeniably to justify our plain and homely speech,
yet, since we are persuaded that its original was from pride and
flattery, we cannot in conscience use it. And however we may be
censured as singular by those loose and airy minds, that through
the continual love of earthly pleasures, consider not the true rise
and tendency of words and things; yet to us whom God has convinced
by his light and Spirit in our hearts of the folly and evil of such
courses, and brought into a spiritual discerning of the nature and
ground of the world's fashions, they appear to be fruits of pride
and flattery; and we dare not continue in such vain compliances to
earthly minds, lest we offend God, and burden our consciences. But
having been sincerely affected with the reproofs of instruction,
and our hearts being brought into a watchful subjection to the
righteous law of JESUS, so as to bring our deeds to the light,
(John, iii. 19-21,) to see in whom they are wrought, if in God or
not; we cannot, we dare not conform ourselves to the fashions of the
world that pass away; knowing assuredly, that "for every idle word
that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of
judgment." (Matt. xii. 36.)
XI. Wherefore, reader, whether thou art a night-walking Nicodemus,
or a scoffing scribe; one that would visit the blessed Messiah,
but in the dark customs of the world, that thou mightest pass as
undiscerned, for fear of bearing his reproachful cross; or else
a favourer of Haman's pride, and countest these testimonies but
a foolish singularity; I must say, Divine love enjoins me to be
a messenger of truth to thee, and a faithful witness against the
evil of this degenerate world, as in other, so in these things; in
which the spirit of vanity and lust hath got so great a head, and
lived so long uncontrolled, that it hath impudence enough to term
its darkness light, and to call its evil offspring by the names
due to a better nature, the more easily to deceive people into the
practice of them. And truly, so very blind and insensible are most
of what spirit they are, and ignorant of the meek and self-denying
life of holy Jesus, whose name they profess; that to call each other
Rabbi, that is, master; to bow to men, which I call worship; and
to greet with flattering titles, and to do their fellow-creatures
homage; to scorn that language to themselves that they give to God,
and to spend their time and estate to gratify their wanton minds;
the customs of the Gentiles, that knew not God, pass with them for
civility, good-breeding, decency, recreation, accomplishments, &c.
O that man would consider, since there are but two spirits, one
good, the other evil, which of them it is that inclines the world
to these things; and whether it be Nicodemus or Mordecai in thee,
that doth befriend these despised Christians, which makes thee
ashamed to disown that openly in conversation with the world, which
the true light hath made vanity and sin to thee in secret! Or if
thou art a despiser, tell me, I pray thee, what dost thou think thy
mockery, anger, or contempt dost most resemble, proud Haman, or
good Mordecai? My friend, know that no man hath more delighted in,
or been prodigal of those vanities called civilities than myself;
and could I have covered my conscience under the fashions of the
world, truly I had found a shelter from showers of reproach that
have fallen very often and thick upon me; but had I, with Joseph,
conformed to Egypt's customs, I had sinned against my God and lost
my peace. But I would not have thee think it is a mere _thou_ or
_title_ simply or nakedly in themselves we boggle at, or that we
would beget or set up any form inconsistent with sincerity or true
civility: there is but too much of that; but the esteem and value
the vain minds of men do put upon them, that ought to be crossed and
stripped of their delights, constrains us to testify so steadily
against them. And this know, from the sense God's Holy Spirit hath
begotten in us, that that which requires these customs, and begets
fear to leave them, and pleads for them, and is displeased, if not
used and paid, is the spirit of pride and flattery in the ground;
though frequency, use, or generosity may have abated its strength in
some: and this being discovered by the light that now shines from
heaven in the hearts of the despised Christians I have communion
with, necessitates them to this testimony; and myself, as one of
them and for them, in a reproof of the unfaithful, who would walk
undiscerned, though convinced to the contrary; and for an allay to
the proud despisers, who scorn us as a people guilty of affectation
and singularity. For the eternal God, who is great amongst us,
and on his way in the earth to make his power known, will root up
every plant that his right hand hath not planted. Wherefore let me
beseech thee, reader, to consider the foregoing reasons, which were
mostly given me from the Lord, in that time, when my condescension
to these fashions would have been purchased at almost any rate;
but the certain sense I had of their contrariety to the meek and
self-denying life of holy JESUS, required of me my disuse of them,
and faithful testimony against them. I speak the truth in Christ;
I lie not: I would not have brought myself under censure and
disdain for them, could I, with peace of conscience, have kept my
belief under a worldly behaviour. It was extremely irksome to me
to decline, and expose myself; but having an assured and repeated
sense of the original of these vain customs, that they rise from
pride, self-love, and flattery, I dared not gratify that mind in
myself or others. And for this reason it is, that I am earnest with
my readers to be cautious how they reprove us on this occasion;
and do once more entreat them that they would seriously weigh in
themselves, whether it be the spirit of the world or of the Father,
that is so angry with our honest, plain, and harmless _thou_ and
_thee_: that so every plant that God our heavenly Father hath not
planted in the sons and daughters of men may be rooted up.