D*****r
发帖数: 6791 | 1 试然，真理曾经随着圣主一度降临世界，其形态十分完美而灿烂夺目，但当圣主升天而
使徒们又已长眠之后，这时就兴起了一个恶毒的欺骗民族。他们就象埃及的泰丰及其同
谋者对待善良的奥西斯一样，他们把圣洁的真理拿来，把她可爱的形体砍成千万个碎片
四散抛开。从那以后，可悲的真理的友人，凡是敢于挺身而出的，都象易西斯寻找奥西
斯的零碎尸体一样，四处奔跑，一块一块地拼凑起来，就象能全部找到似的，上议员和
下议员们，我们还没有全部找到，在圣主再次降临以前，也不可能全都找到。唯有圣主
才能把每一个关节和每一个部分拼凑起来，再铸成永生不死的美妙而完善的形象。我们
不要让这种许可令到处妨碍和阻挠继续寻找真理并继续对殉道的圣者举行葬礼的人。我
们对于光明感到骄傲，但如果我们不能明智地对待太阳，它就会让我们瞎眼。比方说，
常被燃烧的行星，和亮度极大、随同太阳上升下降、直到它们相对地运动到天空某一个
部位而在早晚可见的两颗星，在白天又有谁能分辨呢？因此，上天赐给我们光，不是要
我们对着光注视，而是要我们利用光来发现我们还远不知道的东西。我们之所以能成为
一个快乐的民族，并不是由于我们脱下了教士的道袍、取消了主教的法冠，并把它们从
长老会信徒的肩上除下去。决不是这样；如果教会以及政治经济生活中的大事没有加以
审查和改革，那便是因为我们长久地注视了齐文格里和加尔文两人的灯塔所发出的光芒
，使我们什么也看不见了。有人经常抱怨教派，并认为任何人只要是放弃了自己的箴言
就是一个极大的灾难，其实只是由于他们自己骄傲无知才会这样庸人自扰。他们既不能
虚心听取人家的意见，又不能说服人家，而只是把所有在他们纲领中找不到的东西一律
压制下去。他们是捣乱的人，是破坏团结的人。他们自己不注意寻找、又不让人家去寻
找真理身上所缺乏的那些零星碎片。试据我们已知的东西来寻求未知的东西，将我们找
到的真理结合到真理身上去（因为真理的身体是本质相同而且比例相称的），这就是神
学和数学中的金科玉律，这就能造成教会中最美满的和谐。这种和谐并不是冷漠的中立
和内部支离破碎的思想在外表上强制的结合。
Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a
perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his
Apostles after Him were laid asleep, then strait arose a wicked race of
deceivers, who as that story goes of the ?gyptian Typhon with his
conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth,
hewd her lovely form into a thousand peeces, and scatter'd them to the four
winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst
appear, imitating the carefull search that Isis made for the mangl'd body of
Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find
them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall doe
, till her Masters second comming; he shall bring together every joynt and
member, and shall mould them into an immortall feature of lovelines and
perfection. Suffer not these licencing prohibitions to stand at every place
of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that
continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyr'd Saint. We
boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the Sun it self, it smites us
into darknes. Who can discern those planets that are oft Combust, and those
stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the Sun, untill the
opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament,
where they may be seen evning or morning. The light which we have gain'd,
was giv'n us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things
more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a Priest, the
unmitring of a Bishop, and the removing him from off the Presbyterian
shoulders that will make us a happy Nation, no, if other things as great in
the Church, and in the rule of life both economicall and politicall be not
lookt into and reform'd, we have lookt so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius
and Calvin hath beacon'd up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who
perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that
any man dissents from their maxims. 'Tis their own pride and ignorance which
causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meeknes, nor can convince
, yet all must be suppresst which is not found in their Syntagma. They are
the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not
others to unite those dissever'd peeces which are yet wanting to the body of
Truth. To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still
closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and
proportionall), this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in
Arithmetick, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forc't and
outward union of cold, and neutrall, and inwardly divided minds. |
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