To the Reader
To the Reader W hether the fiery trial of contention or of persecution is greater is hard to determine; God has worked for us to free us from the one, we have brought upon ourselves the other. Every man is angry that others are not of his mind; we have been so divided that it is the infinite mercy of God that our enemies have not come in at our breaches and divided all among themselves before this time. Were our divisions only between the good and bad, they would not be so grievous. Chrysostome says,* It is better to be hated for Christ than to be beloved for him. How much better then is it to be hated for Christ than to be beloved for sin? The reason he gives for that strange assertion of his is, If thou be loved for God, it is an honor to thee, and thou art a debtor for that honor; If thou be hated for him,
God is a debtor to thee, he owes honor to thee, for so he is pleased to be to his poor servants.
But our divisions have been and still are between good men; even God's diamonds do cut one another; good men cause afflictions to good men; every man is plotting, working, winding for himself. Every man strives like
Apelles and Protogenes who shall draw the subtlest line to attain his own
ends, but few strive who shall draw the straightest, who shall in the most direct course work himself and all his ways to God and public good. Who can meddle with this fire that is kindled among us and not burn his fingers?
A man's good affections may happily be approved, but his prudence will be questioned.
But what I find Luther writes in an Epistle to his friend Nicolas Gerbelius in a similar case shall satisfy me: Cupio ego inveniri Christi & Ecclesiæ suæ fidelis, si prudens esse non potuerim minister: I desire howsoever to be a faithful Minister of Christ and his Church if I cannot be a prudent one.
Standing in the gap is more dangerous and troublesome than getting behind the hedge; there you may be more secure and under the wind, but it is best to be there where God looks for a man.* That which Pelopidas said to his wife taking her leave of him as he was going out of his house to the wars is a speech worthy of all men in public place: She comes weeping to him and prays him to look well to himself; he answers her, My good wife, it is for private soldiers to be careful of themselves, not for those in public place; they must have an eye to save other men's lives.
It may be when you are going about a work that has hazard and trouble in it, your wives or some friends of yours will with great affection desire you, beseech you, to have a care of yourselves, that you bring not yourselves into trouble or danger. Oh take heed of that, rather never meddle, let others do that work if they will; you should answer, It is for private men to take care of themselves, but men in public places are called to look to the public, that it suffers not through their neglect.
Some come into the gap not to make it up but to keep it open, yea to make it wider; the Lord deliver me from such a spirit: God knows I had rather die than be a cause of so great an evil. What this endeavor of mine may work in
men's hearts, God knows. If it meets with a son of peace, I hope it will speak peace, it will establish peace in such a heart: if with a son of strife, it may work ad modum recipientis. That which is intended to be an Irenicum may prove to be a Polemicum, a bone of contention.
Those things which God himself ordains for union (the Sacraments) are by man's corruption made the occasion of the greatest contention in the Christian world. No marvel then that what comes from man's sincerest intentions and best endeavors be turned quite cross.
It is likely enough these leaves may meet with some boisterous reader who may beat them one against another, who may pry and pick to find that in them which is not. Looking through the contradictions of his own spirit he may think he sees the like here. Let the lines be never so straight, yet he will wrest and pull them what he can to make them lie cross. I am so far from being solicitous that they are so indeed, that the special thing I desire of thee is the laying one thing to another, the comparing one thing with another.
Remember what the subject is: Divisions, Differences. I have in it to deal with various spirits, opinions, ways: remember the scope is to seek the composing of them what I can. If you see me now near to one side and by and by near to the other, which yet are very wide from one another, be not rash to judge that I am off my center; read on and see what the issue may come to.
This path of mine has been upon sharp stones, cutting shells, and pricking thorns; yet through the help of the shoe of the preparation of the Gospel of peace, I do not find my feet cut.
Peace is precious to me; I feel the sweetness of it. I am willing to do what I can to honor it. The public disputes, contentions, and disturbances abroad
in Church and Commonwealth are very grievous. They say there are such things in families as well. I have brought here some water; if my line had been longer, my bucket would have been fuller. You have here what I delivered; some things are added, especially quotations of authors and histories. When they grow to be many, I think them fitter for the press than the pulpit.
I was more willing for these things to come forth to public view because otherwise what other men apprehended to be my mind would be put into their own words and rendered in an evil appearance. But will printing help?
The boldness of this age is such as not only to make a man's words sound different than when they came from him, and so traduce him, but confidently to aver that there are such things written in such books about such men, which never yet came into their thoughts, much less into their pen.
With what boldness has it been said and printed again and again that I, in that book entitled "The Glorious Name of God, The Lord of Hosts," did call the Earl of Essex the Lord of Hosts. Surely the sight of these men is extramittendo, not intramittendo; they send forth species of their own dyed with the evil of their hearts, and then they say they find them in such a book. No man can find that name given by me to him. I indeed endeavored to encourage him in his work because the Lord had made him the Lord of our Hosts, which is no more than the Lord of our Armies. The utmost that ever was said or written comes but to this: that God had put a name upon him that came near to His, but never mentioned without some difference from it.
An abuse of this kind, though not altogether so high, I have had from the Anti-Apologist; he quotes many places in my lectures upon Hosea, he sets
down the pages wherein he says I have, contrary to what is in the Apology, preached for that way you call Independent. Would any man but think, when he sees the book named in print, the lecture, the very page mentioned, but that the thing is true, it is to be found there? But to this day it has never come to my ears that ever any man has found such things there but himself.
Are those the places? Let moderate and quiet-spirited men look into them, and they shall find nothing there but what the generality of Presbyterian brethren, yea I think I may say every one who is not either Prelatical or very violent, will acknowledge to be truth, and if so, I am free. But we shall have another time for this.
At this time I would gladly that this treatise might meet with no spirit exasperated, but in calmness and quietness let what is here be examined.
That God who can create the fruit of the lips to be peace can make the fruit of the pen to be so. My aims are peace, which I shall never cease endeavoring and praying for, who am Thy friend, glad of any opportunity for thy good,Jeremiah Burroughs.