directed. This place therefore intends no other, but that Hymeneus and Alexander, which were once professors of the Christian doctrine, and such as lived orderly in an unblamable and outwardly holy fashion to the world, had now turned their copy; cast off the profession which they made; and were fallen both to looseness of manners and calumniation of the truth they had abandoned.

For that other scripture, Rom. viii. 12, 13, no place can be more effectual to cut the throat of this uncomfortable heresy. St. Paul writes to a mixed company: it were strange if all the Romans should have been truly sanctified: those which were yet carnal he threats with death; If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: those which are regenerate, contrary to the wicked paradox of those men, he assures of life; If ye mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, ye shall live. How doth he exclude the spirit of bondage to fear which these good guides would lead in again! How confidently doth he aver the inward testimony of God's Spirit to ours; and ascribes that voice to it which bars all doubt and disappointment; and tells us by the powerful assurance of this Abba we are sons, and if sons, heirs, coheirs with Christ! Let them now go and say that God may disinherit his own son; that he may cast off his adopted. same regenerate persons he applies these two clauses; and saith at once, Ye have received the spirit of adoption, and yet, If ye walk after the flesh ye shall die:-What follows of this commination? any assertion of the possibility of apostasy in the regenerate? Nothing less: these threats are to make us take better hold, and to walk more warily as a father that hath set his little son on horseback (it is Zanchy's comparison,) bids him hold fast or else he shall fall, though he uphold him the while; that both he may cause him hereby to sit fast, and call the more earnestly for his supportation. But the scope of the place plainly extorts a division of carnal men and regenerate: the threats are propounded to the one, the promises and assurance to the other; and therefore no touch from hence of our uncertainty in a confessed estate of renovation.

:

"But," say they, "to the

For that Matt. xii. 43. the apodosis or inference of the parable might well have stopped the mouths of these cavillers for you shall find in the end of it, So shall it be with this wicked generation. I suppose no man will be so absurd as to say these Jews had formerly received true justifying faith: how should they, when

they rejected the Messiah? and yet of them is this parable spoken, by our Saviour's own explication. Maldonate himself, a learned and spiteful Jesuit, can interpret it no otherwise: Ideo Christus hoc dixit, ut doceret pejores esse Judæos, quam si nunquam Dei legem et cognitionem accepissent: and to this purpose he cites Hilary, Jerome, Beda: and this sense is so clear, that unless the seven devils had found harbour in the dry hearts of these men, they could not so grossly pervert it.

Quench not the Spirit; 1 Thess. v. 19; will never prove a final or total extinction of saving grace. The Spirit is quenched, when the degrees of it are abated; when the good motions thereof are by our security let fall. We grant the Spirit may be quenched in tanto, not in toto: or, if we should so take it as they desire, I remember Austin parallels this place with that other to Timothy, Let no man despise thy youth: not, saith he, that the Spirit can be quenched, or that contempt can be avoided; but that in the one, we may not endeavour to do that which may tend towards this wrong to the Spirit; and in the other, that we should be careful not to do that which may procure contempt. The place I remember not directly, but numeros teneo, si verba tenerem. But in all likelihood that place sounds quite another way: as may appear by the connection of it with those two sentences following; as if he should have said, “Discourage not the graces that you find in any of your teachers: despise not their preaching: try their doctrines."

And now what is this to the falling from grace? Which of us do not teach the necessity of perseverance? He only that endures to the end shall be saved. Be faithful to the death, and &c. But he that hath ordained we shall be saved, hath ordained our perseverance as a mean to this salvation; and hath appointed these sharp advices as the means and motives of our perseverance: so as he that shall be saved shall also endure to the end; because no man plucks them out of my hand, saith Christ.

How evidently doth the Spirit of God proclaim our certainty against these doubtmongers! Everywhere is he as full of assurance as these men of discomfort. He that is born of God sinneth not; neither can sin, because he is born of God, and the seed of God remains in him; 1 John iii. 9. What an invincible and irrefragable consolation is this! The seed of life is sown in the hearts of the elect. Though they could be dead to themselves, yet to God they cannot.

And what a supposition is that of Christ, that if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived! Matt. xxiv. 24. Desponsabo te mihi in perpetuum; Hos. ii. 19: and a thousand of this strain, which your exercise in those holy leaves hath I doubt not abundantly furnished you withal.

Hold fast then, my dear friend, this sure anchor of our undeceivable hope, and spit in the face of men or devils that shall go about to slacken your hand. Let these vain spirits sing despair to themselves for us, we know whom we have believed.

Thus hath my pen run itself out of breath, in this so important a demand; and much ado have I had to restrain it. Neither would I give you one hour's intermission to my answer; which I know your love cannot but accept, as that which proceeds from an heart zealous both of God and you.

QUO VADIS?

A JUST CENSURE OF TRAVEL,

AS IT IS COMMONLY UNDERTAKEN BY THE GENTLEMEN

OF OUR NATION.

BY JOS. HALL, D. D.

[The short tract, entitled "Quo Vadis?" &c. was written soon after the Bishop's return from attending Viscount Doncaster on his embassy to the court of France in 1616. It is the result of observations and reflections made during this and a former visit to the continent, when he accompanied Sir Edmund Bacon to Spa.]