The vulgarity of those judgments that wrap the Church of God in Strabo's
cloak, and restrain it unto Europe, seem to me as bad geographers as
Alexander, who thought he had conquered all the world, when he had not
subdued the half of any part thereof. For we cannot deny the Church of
God both in Asia and Africa, if we do not forget the peregrinations of
the apostles, the deaths of the martyrs, the sessions of many, and, even
in our reformed judgment, lawful councils, held in those parts in the
minority and nonage of ours. Nor must a few differences, more remarkable
in the eyes of man than perhaps in the judgment of God, excommunicate
from heaven one another, much less those Christians who are in a manner
all martyrs, maintaining their faith in the noble way of persecution, and
serving God in the fire, whereas we honour Him in the sunshine. It is
true we all hold there is a number of elect, and many to be saved; yet
take our opinions together, and from the confusion thereof there will be
no such thing as salvation, nor shall any one be saved. For first, the
Church of Rome condemneth us, we likewise them; the sub-reformists and
sectaries sentence the doctrine of our Church as damnable; the atomist,
or familist, reprobates all these; and all these them again. Thus,
whilst the mercies of God do promise us heaven, our conceits and opinions
exclude us from that place. There must be therefore more than one St.
Peter. Particular churches and sects usurp the gates of heaven, and turn
the key against each other: and thus we go to heaven against each other's
wills, conceits, and opinions, and, with as much uncharity as ignorance,
do err, I fear, in points not only of our own, but one another's
salvation.
I believe many are saved, who to man seem reprobated; and many are
reprobated who in the opinion and sentence of man stand elected. There
will appear at the last day strange and unexpected examples, both of His
justice and His mercy; and therefore to define either is folly in man,
and insolency even in the devils. Those acute and subtle spirits, in all
their sagacity, can hardly divine who shall be saved; which if they could
prognosticate, their labour were at an end; nor need they compass the
earth, seeking whom they may devour. Those who, upon a rigid application
of the law, sentence Solomon unto damnation, condemn not only him but
themselves, and the whole world; for by the letter, and written word of
God, we are, without exception, in the state of death; but there is a
prerogative of God, and an arbitrary pleasure above the letter of His own
law, by which alone we can pretend unto salvation, and through which
Solomon might be as easily saved as those who condemn him.
The number of those who pretend unto salvation, and those infinite swarms
who think to pass through the eye of this needle, have much amazed me.
That name and compellation of 'little flock' doth not comfort but deject
my devotion, especially when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness,
wherein, according to my humble apprehensions, I am below them all. I
believe there shall never be an anarchy in heaven; but as there are
hierarchies amongst the angels, so shall there be degrees of priority
amongst the saints. Yet it is, I protest, beyond my ambition to aspire
unto the first ranks; my desires only are, and I shall be happy therein,
to be but the last man, and bring up the rear in heaven.