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. xi. 11: And it came to pass, that they which remained were scattered, so that two of them were not left together. And yet we have daily experience of greater scatterings and dissipations of men in their opinions.

Suppose ten men, out of pretended purity, but real pride and peevishness, make a wilful separation from the Church of England, possibly they may continue some competent time in tolerable unity 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 moiety divide from the other, as more drossy and feculent.

Then the five in process of time, upon the like occasion of clearer illumination, will cleave themselves 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 into 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 243truth, that one man will at last be divided in himself, distracted often in his judgment betwixt many opinions; that, what is reported of Tostatus, lying on his death-bed, in multitudine controversiarum non habuit, quod crederet; amongst the multitude of persuasions through which he had passed, he knoweth not where to cast anchor and fix himself at the last.