80? I waver.
Ib. p. 87.
For my part, I bless God, who gave me even under a Usurper, whom I
opposed, such liberty and advantage to preach his Gospel with success,
which I cannot have under a King to whom I have sworn and performed
true subjection and obedience; yea, which no age since the Gospel came
into this land did before possess, as far as I can learn from history.
Sure I am that when it became a matter of reputation and honour to be
godly, it abundantly furthered the successes of the ministry. Yea, and
I shall add this much more for the sake of posterity, that as much as
I have said and written against licentiousness in religion, and for
the magistrate's power in it, and though I think that land most happy,
whose rulers use their authority for Christ as well as for the civil
peace; yet in comparison of the rest of the world, I shall think that
land happy that hath but bare liberty to be as good as they are
willing to be; and if countenance and maintenance be but added to
liberty, and tolerated errors and sects be but forced to keep the
peace, and not to oppose the substantials of Christianity, I shall not
hereafter much fear such toleration, nor despair that truth will bear
down adversaries.
What a valuable and citable paragraph! Likewise it is a happy instance
of the force of a cherished prejudice in an honest mind--practically
yielding to the truth, but yet with a speculative, "Though I still
think, &c.
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