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IN this manner the poor man was wont to sigh out his soul, hoping that at last the heavens would please to hear him and favour him with the understanding of that, which would make all his groans useless, and render him as chearful, as now he found himself dis∣consolate. But that which made the fulfilling of his desires more difficult, and his hopes to arrive more
slow, was the many controversies which were in those dayes fiercely agitated, and the huge quarrels that men raised about the right way to Jerusalem. There were no less than twenty (and some say many more) very different parties that contended sharply with each other; and every one of them confidently affirmed that they only were the people of Sion, and that unless he joyned himself to their company (in which alas there was no Peace at all) he should never come to that City of God which he sought after. The heads of these divisions made the world believe that they were the Torches which must light them through the darkness of errour; the Pole-star to regulate their course in the search and discovery of truth; and that unless men used their Clue (which God knows was most wofully intangled) they should never fail to be lost in the Labyrinths and Maeanders of Ignorance and Folly. Nay to such a degree did they magnifie themselves, as if Truth and they had been born at the same time, or at least had come of Age together. It seemed to be a secret till they appeared, and to have been reserved from the beginning on purpose to dis∣cover it self to them in Markets and Camps, if not in lewder places. The most modest pretension was, that Truth was but a stripling, or rather went in side-coats, till it came to their schools to be ripened into the wis∣dome of perfect men. They spake of the affairs of Heaven, as if they were Counsellors of State in that Kingdom; and opened the secrets of Jesus Christ as if they were his Confidents. St. John who lay in his bosom never delivered any thing with greater perem∣ptoriness than these men did; and, had it not been that they wanted his charity, they might have been thought by most as great Oracles as they thought
themselves. There seemed no difference between them and Prophets, but only that they could not prove their mission; else they had the gift of boldness and fell not short in their pretenses to inspiration. In this conceit they thrust into the world a great number of books which were called the Word of the Lord, and cryed up as the Maps of that heavenly Country, and the exact Charts whereby men must steer their course if ever they meant to come safely thither. Into huge Volumes these writings sometimes swelled, and they were wont to collect and faggot together so many things and so vastly different; that a man could not easily avoid to lose his way in this Wood, while he was seeking his way to Jerusalem. Especially since they never forgot to furnish these bundles with some lusty sticks wherewith to bang their adversaries and beat them down as low as hell. For in the midst of such a fearful scuffle, there was so great a dust raised; that no man could tell where he was, nor discern any thing but only this, that he was not in the way to the Vision of Peace.
I need not relate how sorely it grieved the good mans heart to see so many different wayes, every one of them laying so high a claim to truth, and bitterly reproaching the rest as damnable Heresies. He could bend his course to no quarter, but he was in danger to be assaulted with some question or other, and was put upon his desence against some man of brass, who thought himself worthy to be one of the Champions of Truth. The spirit of common Barretry did not seem a greater plague to him, than these vexatious disputing people. The fury of whom likewise was sometimes so violent, that he thought he had made a good retreat if he were not bruised and almost beat
in pieces by their rude blows, whose opinions he ad∣ventured to thwart by any strong contradiction. Nay they all taking distant paths and not going in streight and parallel lines, but in oblique and crooked wayes, which crossed each other very frequently; they never met together, but there was such justling and quarrelling about the road to Jerusalem, that no man could be near them but they would ingage him to take the one or the other part in the Bloody conflict. So I call it; for they thought that they did God good service, when they dispatched one of their enemies; and that they made him a Sacrifice, when they satis∣fied their own beastly fury. And this indeed was the saddest thing of all to his thoughts, that their heat and passion they had the confidence to Baptize into the name of holy zeal; and that which was but the love of their own opinion, they constantly miscalled the love of God and of his Truth. Though those dayes (as I have already said) were very frozen and cold, yet they cudgel'd one another so long till they grew not; and then they cry'd the weather was very warm and the Sun in his highest elevation. Gods enemies they thought they opposed in their own; and they fancied themselves ingaged against sin while they were buffet∣ing a contrary opinion. There was no heat but they took it for divine, though it were of their own kind∣ling; and so they were but all on fire, they never doubted but it was from heaven. For there was no sin in those dayes like Moderation, and no vertue comparable to a furious and headlong zeal. But yet he received this benefit by those unhappy feuds, that they made him sometimes think it was no mean thing in the esteem of others as well as himself, for which there was so many and so fiery contenders. The Prize
he hoped would prove glorious which had drawn into the field so many combatants, and which with such zealous sticklings all sides sought to win. The affliction also which he felt in his spirit when he be∣held them so sharply ingaged, had this good effect upon him; that it made him more sensibly admire the goodness of God which had preserved him from listing himself in any of those angry parties, and entring into those never enough to be lamented broils. This put him likewise in some hopes that he would not suf∣fer him likewise in some hopes that he would not suf∣fer him to remain long without the knowledge of the Truth, who had so gratiously prevented him from diverting into the paths of falshood. This degree of understanding he had already acquired, That Sweet∣ness and Love, Meekness and Peace were the Harbin∣gers to Divine Knowledg, and since they were become his Guests, he hoped that would not be far behind. But that any man who knows God to be Love, should imagine that he will dwell in a mind where there is nothing but hatred to be found, seemed a kind of Prodigy unto him. And it did quite astonish him to see that so many men did dream that the way to The Vision of Peace lay through the field of strife and war; and that we must come to live together in endless love hereafter, by living in perpetual frays and brawls in the world where we now are.