“I will own frankly, Mr Balfour,” replied Morton, “much of this sort of language, which, I observe, is so powerful with others, is entirely lost on me. It is proper you should be aware of this before we commune further together.” (The young clergyman here groaned deeply.) “I distress you, sir,” said Morton; “but, perhaps, it is because you will not hear me out. I revere the Scriptures as deeply as you or any Christian can do. I look into them with humble hope of extracting a rule of conduct and a law of salvation. But I expect to find this by an examination of their general tenor, and of the spirit which they uniformly breathe, and not by wresting particular passages from their context, or by the application of Scriptural phrases to circumstances and events with which they have often very slender relation.” The young divine seemed shocked and thunderstruck with this declaration, and was about to remonstrate. “Hush, Ephraim!” said Burley, “remember he is but as a babe in swaddling clothes.--Listen to me, Morton. I will speak to thee in the worldly language of that carnal reason, which is, for the present, thy blind and imperfect guide. What is the object for which thou art content to draw thy sword? Is it not that the church and state should be reformed by the free voice of a free parliament, with such laws as shall hereafter prevent the executive government from spilling the blood, torturing and imprisoning the persons, exhausting the estates, and trampling upon the consciences of men, at their own wicked pleasure?” “Most certainly,” said Morton; “such I esteem legitimate causes of warfare, and for such I will fight while I can wield a sword.” “Nay, but,” said Macbriar, “ye handle this matter too tenderly; nor will my conscience permit me to fard or daub over the causes of divine wrath.” “Peace, Ephraim Macbriar!” again interrupted Burley. “I will not peace,” said the young man. “Is it not the cause of my Master who hath sent me? Is it not a profane and Erastian destroying of his authority, usurpation of his power, denial of his name, to place either King or Parliament in his place as the master and governor of his household, the adulterous husband of his spouse?” “You speak well,” said Burley, dragging him aside, “but not wisely; your own ears have heard this night in council how this scattered remnant are broken and divided, and would ye now make a veil of separation between them? Would ye build a wall with unslaked mortar?--if a fox go up, it will breach it.” “I know,” said the young clergyman, in reply, “that thou art faithful, honest, and zealous, even unto slaying; but, believe me, this worldly craft, this temporizing with sin and with infirmity, is in itself a falling away; and I fear me Heaven will not honour us to do much more for His glory, when we seek to carnal cunning and to a fleshly arm. The sanctified end must be wrought by sanctified means.”