Of the nature and use of lots a treatise historical and theologicalOf the nature and vse of lots a treatise historicall and theologicall

To spend time and words in proving that the use of a Lot in game as it is a Lot, is not against Charity, as that it is no breach of Charity for men to draw Cuts or cast Arrows, who shall boule or shoot first, were both superfluous and ridiculous; superfluous, because it were to prove what no man denieth; ridiculous, because it were to confute what no wise man will avow. And yet to charge a lusorious Lot with Impiety, hath as little ground as the other.

To spend time and words in proouing that the vse of a Lot in game as it is a Lot, is not against Charitie, as that it is no breach of Charity for men to draw Cuts or cast Arrowes, who shall boule or shoote first, were both superfluous and ridiculous; superfluous, because it were to proue what no man denieth; ridiculous, because it were to confute what no wise man wil avow. And yet to charge a lusorious Lot with Impietie, hath as little ground as the other.

For the manifesting here of let thus much be considered, that all Impiety may be referred to these ^htwo heads, either the profaning of hallowed things, or the hallowing of things profane: since it cannot be imagined how any impiety should be ⟨p. 132⟩committed but either by denying holy things their due respect, or by giving the same where it is not due. But lusorious Lots are not of themselves guilty in either of these kinds. In the latter kind even their greatest adversaries will clear them, there being no colour to charge them with the hallowing of ought that is not otherwise holy. And in the former kind they may be cleared also by the grounds of Gods Law, to wit, from the profaning of ought that is holy. For the thing used in them is a Lot: and nothing can be profaned by them but what is used in them: (by Lots, I mean simply as they are Lots, for to make Lots of holy things, as of parcels of Scripture, or of the Elements consecrate in the Sacrament, &c. is not any thing concerning the nature of a Lot, but an abuse cleaving to it in some particular mens practise of it, and such as is to be severed therefore in this our discourse from it.) But a Lot is no holy thing, either of it self and in it own nature, or by virtue of any divine institution. For of these two sorts are all holy things whatsoever, either they are holy of themselves and in their own nature, as