Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…

Now for your help in this: As God hath given two lights to the world, the Sun, the grater to rule the day; and the Moon, the lesser, to rule the night: So he hath given two Lights to man, to guide his course; the Scriptures the greater, to guide man, especially in his spiritual condition, in those more immediate references he hath to God, for his worship and enjoyment of communion with him: The other the less, the light of Reason, to be his guide in natural and civill things, in the ordering his life for his natural and civill good; and though it is true, Religion makes use of Reason, and we have help from the Scriptures in our natural and civill affairs, yet these two lights have their distinct special use, according to those distinct conditions of man.

Now for your help in this: As God hath given two lights to the world, the Sunne, the grater to rule the day; and the Moone, the lesser, to rule the night: So he hath given two Lights to man, to guide his course; the Scriptures the greater, to guide man, especially in his spirituall condition, in those more immediate references he hath to God, for his worship and enjoyment of communion with him: The other the less, the light of Reason, to be his guide in naturall and civill things, in the ordering his life for his naturall and civill good; and though it is true, Religion makes use of Reason, and we have help from the Scriptures in our natural and civill affairs, yet these two lights have their distinct speciall use, according to those distinct conditions of man.

When I say,¹ we must have Scripture, and in it institutions for those things which are spiritual, and properly Church-affairs, I mean whatsoever is made use of for the drawing my soul nearer to God, or God nearer to me; or for the tendering up my Homage to God, beyond what it hath in the nature of the thing, put into it by God; for that I must have an institution, I must not frame any such thing to my self; If I make use of any thing of mine own, for such an end that I may worship God by, or that God might convey some spiritual efficacy to me in the use of it, because it is a thing that I think as fit for such an end, as other Ordinances I find in the Word, and yet have not an institution for it; in this I sin against Christ the Lord, who alone hath power to set apart the use of what he pleaseth, for the tendering up homage to God, or the conveying of any spiritual efficacy from God into the hearts of his servants.