Mixt contemplations in better times by Thomas Fuller ...

IV. Atoms at last.

I Meet not either in sacred or profane writ with so terrible a Rout, as Saul gave unto the host of the Ammonites, under Nahash their King, 1 Sam. 11.11. And it came to passe, that they which remained were scattered, so that two of them were not left together. And yet we have dai∣ly experience of greater scatterings and dissipations of men in their opinions.

Suppose ten men out of pretended pu∣rity, but real pride and peevishnesse, make a wilful seperation from the Church of England, possibly they may continue some competent time in tolerable uni∣ty together.

Afterwards upon a new discovery of a higher and holier way of Divine

service, these ten will split asunder into five and five, and the purer moyetie di∣vide from the other, as more drossie and feculent.

Then the five in process of time up∣on the like occasion of clearer Illumi∣nation, will cleave themselvs into three and two.

Some short time after, the three will crumble into two and one, and the two part into one and one, till they come in∣to the condition of the Ammonites, so scattered that two of them were not left together.

I am sad, that I may add with too much truth, that one man will at last be divided in himself, distracted often in his judgment betwixt many opini∣ons, that, what is reported of Tostatus lying on his death-bed, In multitudine controversiarum non habuit, quod crede∣ret; amongst the multitude of perswasi∣ons, through which he had passed, he knoweth not where to cast Anchor and fix himself at the last.