Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times

doth argue less Judgment and Charity than many of the Censurers seem to have. I never heard of any Censure against these Papers, though the few Lines which occasioned them had so much.

§ 161. 6. Before this I had published two Assize Sermons, entitled, True Christianity, one of Christ's Dominion, and the other of his Sovereignty over all Men as Redeemer: The first was preached before Judge Atkins, Sir Tho. Rous being high Sheriff: The second before Serjeant Glyn, who desiring me to print it, I thought meet to print the former with it.

§ 162. 7. Also I published my Apology against divers that had printed Books against many things which I had written. It consisteth of five parts: 1. An Answer to Mr. Blake. 2. An Answer to Dr. Kendall. 3. A Confutation of Ludiom • us Colvinus. 4. An Answer to Mr. Crandon. 5. An Answer to Mr. Eyres.

The first, Mr. Blake, a reverend worthy Man of my acquaintance, in a Treatise of the Covenants had written much, I thought mistakingly against me; and though I replied without any sharpness, it was very displeasing to him.

Dr. Kendall was little quick Spirited Man, of great Ostentation and a Considerable Orator and Scholar: He was driven on farther by others than his own Inclination would have led him: He thought to get an Advantage for his Reputation, by a Triumph over John Goodwin and me; for those that set him on work would needs have him conjoin us both together, to intimate that I was an Arminian; while I was replying to his first Assault, he wrote a second; and when I had begun a Reply to that, meeting me at London, he was so earnest to take up the Controversy, engaging Mr. Vines to persuade me that Bishop Usher might determine it, and I was so willing to be eased of such work, and to end anything which might be made a Temptation against Charity, that I quickly yielded to Bishop Ushers Arbitriment, who owned my Judgment about Universal Redemption, Perseverance, &c. but desired us to write against each other no more; and so my Second Reply was suppressed.

As for Ludiomaeus Colvinus, it is Ludovicus Molinaeus a Doctor of Physic, and Son to Pet. Molinaeus, and public Professor of History in Oxford: He wrote a small Latin Tractate against his own Brother Cyrus Molinaeus, to prove that Justification is before Faith: I thought I might be bold to con • ute him who chose the Truth and his own Brother to oppose. Another small Assault the same Author made against me (instead of a Reply) for approving of Cameron and Amiraldus 's way about universal Redemption and Grace: To which I answered in the Preface to there Book: But these things were so far from alienating the Esteem and Affection of the Doctor, that he is now at this Day one of those Friends who are injurious to the Honor of their own Understanding by overvaluing me, and would fain have spent his time in translating some of my Books into the French Tongue.

Mr. Crandon was a Man that had run from Arminianism into the Extream of half Antinomianism, and having an excessive Zeal for his Opinions (which seem to be honored by the extolling of Free-grace) and withal being an utter stranger to me, he got a deep conceit that I was a Papist, and in that persuasion wrote a large Book against my Aphorisms, which moved laughter in many, and pity in others, and troubled his Friends, as having disadvantaged their Cause. As soon as the Book came abroad, the news of the Author's death came with it, who died a fortnight after its birth. I had before hand got all save the beginning and end, out of the Press, and wrote so much of an Answer as I thought it worthy, before the publication of it.

Mr. Eyres was a Preacher in Salisbury of Mr. Crandon 's Opinion; who having preached there for Justification before Faith, (that is, the Justification of Elect Infidels) was publicly confuted by Mr. Warren, and Mr. Woodbridge (a very judicious Minister of Newbury, who had lived in New-England ): Mr. Woodbridge printed his Sermon, which very perspicuously opened the Doctrine of Justification after the method that I had done. Mr. Eyres being offended with me as a Partner, gave me some part of his opposition, to whom I returned an Answer in the end: And a few words to Mr. Caryl who licensed and approved Mr. Crandon 's Book, (for the Antinomians were commonly Independents). No one of all the Parties replied to this Book, save only Mr. Blake to some part of that which touched him.

§ 162. 8. Because my Aphorisms had so provoked so many, and the noise was very loud against them, to make the Passages plainer which ofended them (about Justification, Sanctification, Merit, Punishment, &c. ) I wrote a Book, called The Confession of my Faith about those matters: which I gave the World to save any more of them from misunderstanding my Aphorisms, and declared my Suspension of my Aphorisms till I should reprint them, intending only to correct two or three Passages, and elucidate the rest: But afterward I greatly affected to bring them into a small System of Divinity, which having never yet had time to write, I have omitted the reprinting of them to this day; (But some have surreptitiously printed them against my will).

In my Confession I opened the whole Doctrine of Antinomianism which I opposed, and I brought the Testimonies of abundance of our Divines, who give as much to other Acts besides Faith, in Justification as I. And I opened the weakness of Dr. Owen 's Reasonings for Justification before Faith, in his former Answer to me. To which he wrote an Answer, annexing it to his Confutation of Biddle and the Cracovian Catechism (to intimate that I belonged to that Party) that I thought it unfit to make any Reply to it, not only because I had no vacancy from better work, but because the quality of it was such as would unavoidably draw me, if I confuted it, to speak so much and so offensively to the Person, as well as the Doctrine, that it would have been a Temptation to the further weakening of his Charity, and increasing his desire of Revenge: And I thought it my duty (when the Readers good required me not to write) to forbear replying, and to let him have the last word, because I had begun with him. And I perceived that the common distaste of Men against him and his Book made my Reply the more unnecessary.

But for all the Writings and Warth of Men which were provoked against me, I must here record my Thanks to God for the Success of my Controversal Writings against the Antinomians: when I was in the Army it was the predominant Infection: The Books of Dr. Crisp, Paul Hobson, Saltmarsh, Cradock, and abundance such like were the Writings most applauded; and he was thought no Spiritual Christian, but a Legalist that savoured not of Antinomianism, which was sugared with the Title of Free-grace; and others were thought to preach the Law, and not to preach Christ. And I confess, the darkness of many Preachers in the Mysteries of the Gospel, and our common neglect of studying and preaching Grace, and Gratitude, and Love, did give occasion to the prevalency of this Sect, which God no doubt permitted for our good, to review our apprehension of those Evangelical Graces and Duties which we barely acknowledged, but in our practice almost overlooked. But this Sect that then so much prevailed, was so suddenly almost extinct, that now they little appear, and make no noise among us at all, nor have done these many years! In which effect those ungrateful Controversal Writings of my own have had so much hand, as obligeth me to very much Thankfulness to God.

§ 164. About that time having been at London, and preached some Sermons there, one scrap of a Sermon preached in Westminster-Abbey to many Members of Parliament, was taken by someone and printed; which is nothing but the naming of a few Directions which I then gave the Parliament Men for Church Reformation and Peace, according to the state of those Times which it was preached in. (In Oliver Cromwell 's time.)

§ 165. 10. And when I was returned home I was solicited by Letters to print many of the Sermons which I had preached in London; and in some of them I gratified their desires: One Sermon which I published was against Men's making light of Christ, upon Matth. 22. 5. This Sermon was preached at Lawrence Jury, where Mr. Vines was Pastor: where though I sent the day before to secure room for the Lord Broghill, and the Earl of Suffolk, with whom I was to go in the Coach, yet when I came, the Crowd had so little respect of Persons, that they were fain to go home again, because they could not come within hearing, and the old Earl of Warwick (who stood in the Abbey) brought me home again: And Mr. Vines himself was fain to get up into the Pulpit, and sit behind me, and I to stand between his Legs: which I mention that the Reader may understand that Verse in my Poem concerning him which is printed, where I say, That

§ 166. 11. Another of those Sermons which I published was, A Sermon of Judgment, which I enlarged into a small Treatise. This was preached at Paul's at the desire of Sir Christopher Pack, then Lord Mayor, to the greatest Auditory that I ever saw.

§ 167. 12. Another Sermon which I preached at Martin 's Church, I printed with enlargement, called, Catholic Unity; showing the great necessity of Unity in real Holiness: It is fitted to the profane and ignorant People, who are still crying out against Errors and Divisions about lesser matters, while they themselves do practically and damnably err in the Foundation, and divide themselves from God, from Christ, from the Spirit, and from all the living Members of Christ: And it showeth how greatly Ungodliness tendeth to Divisions, and Godliness to the truest Unity and Peace.

§ 168. 13. About that time I had preached a Sermon at Worcester, which (though rude and not polished) I thought meet to print, under the Title of The true Catholic, and The Catholic Church described: It is for Catholicism against all Sects; to show the Sin and Folly and Mischief of all Sects that would appropriate the Church to themselves, and trouble the World with the Question, Which of all these Parties is the Church? as if they knew not that the Catholic Church is that whole which containeth all the Parts, though some more pure, and some less: especially it is suited against the Romish Claim, which damneth all Christians besides themselves; and it detecteth and confuteth dividing Principles: For I apprehended it a Matter of great Necessity to imprint true Catholicism on the Minds of Christians; it being a most lamentable thing to observe how few Christians in the World there be, that fall not into one Sect or other, and wrong not the common Interest of Christianity, for the promoting of the Interest of their Sect: And how lamentably Love is thereby destroyed, so that most men think not that they are bound to love those, as the Members of Christ, which are against their Party, and the Leaders of most Sects do not stick to persecute those that differ from them, and think the Blood of those who hinder their Opinions, and Parties, to be an acceptable Sacrifice to God. And if they can but get to be of a Sect which they think the holiest (as the Anabaptists and Separatists), or which is the largest, (as the Greeks and Papists) they think then that they are sufficiently warranted, to deny others to be God's Church, or at least to deny them Christian Love and Communion.

To this small Book I annexed a Poscript against a ridiculous Pamphlet of one Malpas, an old scandalous neighbor Minister, who was permitted to stay in by the Parliament, (so far were they from being over-strict in their Reformation of the Clergy) and now is a considerable Man among them.

§ 169. 14. When we set on foot our Association in Worcestershire, I was desired to print our Agreement, with an Explication of the several Articles: which I did in a small Book, called, Christian Concord: In which I gave the reasons why the Episcopal, Presbyterians, and Independents might and should unite on such Terms, without any change of any of their Principles: But I confess that the new Episcopal Party, that follow Grotius too far, and deny the very being of all the Ministers and Churches that have not Diocesan Bishops, are not capable of Union with the rest upon such Terms: And hereby I gave notice to the Gentry and others of the Royalists in England, of the great danger they were in of changing their Ecclesiastical Cause, by following new Leaders that were for Grotianism. But this Admonition did greatly offend the Guilty, who now began to get the Reins; though the old Episcopal Protestants confessed it to be all true. There is nothing bringeth greater hatred and sufferings on a Man, than to foreknow the mischief that Men in power are doing, and intend, and to warn the World of it: For while they are resolutely going on with it, they will proclain him a Slanderer that revealeth it, and use him accordingly, and never be ashamed when they have done it, and thereby declared all which he foretold to be true.

§ 170. 15. Having in the Postscript of my True Catholic, given a short touch against a bitter Book of Mr. Thomas Pierce 's against the Puritans and me, it pleased him to write another Volume against Mr. Hickman and me, just like the Man; full of malignant bitterness against Godly men that were not of his Opinion; and breathing out blood-thirsty malice, in a very Rhetorical fluent style. Abundance of Lies also are in it against the old Puritans, as well as against me; and in particular in charging Hacket 's Villany upon Cartwright as a Confederate: which I instance in, because I have (out of old Mr. Ash 's Library) a Manuscript of Mr. Cartwright 's containing his full Vindication against that Calumny, which some would fain have fastened on him in his time.

But Mr. Pierce 's principal business was to defend Grotius: In answer to which I wrote a little Treatise, called, The Grotian Religion discovered, at the Invitation of Mr. Thomas Pierce: In which I cited his own words, especially out of his Discussio Apologetici Rivetaini, wherein he openeth his Terms of Reconciliation with Rome, viz. That it be acknowledged the Mistress Church, and the Pope have his Supreme Government, but not Arbitrary, but only according to the Canons; To which end he defendeth the Council of Trent itself, Pope Pius 's Oath, and all the Councils, which is no other than the French sort of Popery: I had not then heard of the Book written in France, called Grotius Papizans, nor of Sarravius 's Epistles, in which he witnesseth it from his own mouth. But the very words which I cited contain an open Profession of Popery. This Book the Printer abused, printing every Section so distant, to fill up Paper, as if they had been several Chapters.

And in a Preface before it, I vindicated the Synod of Dort (where the Divines of England were chief Members) from the abusive virulent Accusations of one that called himself Tilenus junior. Hereupon Pierce wrote a much more railing malicious Volume than the former, (the liveliest Express of Satan's Image, malignity, bloody malice, and falsehood, covered in handsome railing Rhetoric, (that ever I have seen from any that called himself a Protestant). And the Preface was answered just in the same manner by one that styled himself Philo-Tilenus. Three such Men as this Tilenus junior, Pierce and Gunning, I have not heard of besides in England! Of the Jesuits Opinion in Doctrinals, and of the old Dominican Complexion, the ablest Men that their Party hath in all the Land; of great diligence in study and reading; of excellent Oratory (especially Tilenus junior and Pierce ); of temperate Lives; but all their Parts so sharpened with furious persecuting Zeal, against those that dislike Arminianism, high Prelacy, or full Conformity, that they are like the Briars and Thorns which are not to be handled, but by a fenced hand, and breathe out Tereatnings against God's Servants better than themselves; and seem unsatisfied with blood and ruins, and still cry, Give, Give; bidding as loud defiance to Christian Charity, as ever Arius or any Heretic did to Faith.

This Book of mine of the Grotian Religion greatly offended many others: but none of them could speak any Sence against it, the Citations for Matter of Fact being unanswerable. And it was only the Matter of Fact which I undertook, viz. To prove that Grotius professed himself a moderate Papist: But for his fault in so doing, I little meddled with it.

§ 171. 16. Mr. Blake having reply, to some things in my Apology, especially about Right to Sacraments, or the just subject of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, I wrote five Disputations on those Points, proving that it is not the reality of a Dogmatical (or Justifying) Faith, nor yet the Profession of bare Assent (called a Dogmatical Faith by many); but only the Profession of a Saving Faith, which is the Condition of Men's title to Church-Communion Coram Ecclesiâ: and that Hypocrites are but Analogically or Equivocally called Christians, and Believers, and Saints, &c. with much more to decide the most troublesome Controversy of that Time, which was about the Necessary Qualification and Title of Church-Members and Communicants: Many men have been perplexed about that Point, and that Book. Some think it cometh too near the Independents, and some that it is too far from them; and many think it very hard, that [A Credible Profession ] of True Faith and Repentance, should be made the stated Qualification; because they think it incredible that all the Jewish Members were such: But I have sifted this Point more exactly and diligently in my thoughts, than almost any Controversy whatsoever: And fain I would have found some other Qualification to take up with, (1. Either the Profession of some lower Faith than that which hath the Promise of Salvation; 2. Or at least such a Profession of Saving Faith, as needeth not to be credible at all, &c.) But the Evidence of Truth hath forced me from all other ways, and suffered me to rest nowhere but here. That Profession should be made necessary without any respect at all to Credibility, and consequently to the verity of the Faith professed, is incredible, and a Contradiction, and the very word Profession signifieth more. And I was forced to observe, that those that in Charity would belive another Profession to be the title to Church-Communion, do greatly cross their own design of Charity: And while they would not be bound to believe men to be what they profess, for fear of excluding many whom they cannot believe, they do leave themselves and all others as not obliged to love any Church-Member as such, with the love which is due to a True Christian, but only with such a Love as they owe to the Members of the Devil; and so deny them the Kernel of Charity, by giving the Shell to a few more than else they would do. Whereas upon my deepest search, I am satisfied that a Credible Profession of true Christianity, is it that denominateth (the Adult) visible Christians: And that this must contain Assent and Consent, even all that is in the Baptismal Covenant, and no more; and therefore Baptism is called our Christening: But withal, that the Independents bring in Tyranny and Confusion, whilst they will take no Profession as Credible, which hath not more to make it credible than God and Charity require: And that indeed every man's word is to be taken as the Credible Profession of his own mind, unless he forfeit the Credit of his word, by gross ignorance of the Matter professed, or by a Contrary Profession, or by an inconsistent Life: And therefore a Profession is credible as such, of itself, till he that questioneth it doth disprove it. Else the Rules of Human Converse will be overthrown: for who knoweth the Heart of another so well as he himself: And God who will save or damn men, not for other men's Actions but their own, will have men's own choosing or refusing to be their inlet or exclusion, both as to Saving Mercy, and to a Church state: And if they be Hypocrites in a false Profession, the sin and loss will be their own. But I confess men's Credibility herein hath very various degrees: But though my fears are never so great, that a man dissembleth and is not sincere, yet if I be not able to bring in that Evidence to invalidate his Profession, which in foro Ecclesiae shall prove it to be incredible, I ought to receive him as a credible Professor, though but by a Human, and perhaps most debile Belief.

§ 172. 17. After that I published four Disputations of Justification, clearing up further those Points in which some Reverend Brethren blamed my Judgment; and answering Reverend Mr. Burgess (who would needs write somewhat against me in his Treatise of Imputed Righteousness ); and also answering a Treatise of Mr. Warner 's of the Office and Object of Justifying Faith: The Fallacies that abuse many about those Points are there fully opened.

If the Reader would have the Sum of my Judgment about Justification, in brief, he may find it very plainly in a Sermon on that Subject, among the Morning Exercises at St. Giles's in the Fields, preached by my worthy Friend Mr. Gibbons of Block-Friars, (in whose Church I ended my Public Ministry); a Learned Judicious Man, now with God. And it is as fully opened in a Latin Disputation of Monsieur le Blanc 's of Sedan; and Placaeus in Thes. Salmur. Vol. 1. de Iustif. hath much to the same purpose.

§ 173. 18. Near the same time I published a Treatise of Conversion, being some plain Sermons on that Subject, which Mr. Baldwin (an honest young Minister that had lived in my House, and learnt my proper Characters, or short-hand, in which I wrote my Sermon Notes) had transcribed out of my Notes. And though I had no leisure, for this or other Writings, to take much care of the style, nor to add any Ornaments, or Citations of Authors, I thought it might better pass as it was, than not at all; and that if the Author, mist of the Applause of the Learned, yet the Book might be profitable to the Ignorant, as it proved through the great Mercy of God.

§ 174. 19. Also I published a shorter Treatise on the same Subject, entitled, A Call to the Unconverted, &c. The Occasion of this was my Converse with Bishop Usher while I was at London, who much appoving my Method or Directions for Peace of Conscience, was importunate with me to write Directions suited to the various States of Christians, and also against particular Sins: I reverenced the Man, but disregarded these Persuasions, supposing I could do nothing but what is done as well or better already: But when he was dead his Words went deeper to my Mind, and I purposed to obey his Counsel; yet so as that to the first sort of Men (the Ungodly) I thought vehement Persuasions meeter than Directions only: And so for such I published this little Book; which God hath blessed with unexpected Success beyond all the rest that I have written (except The Saints Rest ): In a little more than a Year there were about twenty thousand of them printed by my own Consent, and about ten thousand since, besides many thousands by stolen Impressions, which poor, Men stole for Lucre sake: Through God's Mercy I have had Informations, almost whole Housholds converted by this small Book, which I set so light by: And as if all this in England, Scotland and Ireland were not Mercy enough to me, God (since I was silenced) hath sent it over on his Message to many beyond the Seas; for when Mr. Elliot had printed all the Bible in the Indians Language, he next translated this my Call to the Unconverted, as he wrote to us here: And though it was here thought prudent to begin with the Practice of Piety, because of the envy and distaste of the times against me, he had finished it, before that Advice came to him. And yet God would make some farther use of it; for Mr. Stoop the Pastor of the French Church in London, being driven hence by the displeasure of Superiors, was pleased to translate it into elegant French, and print it in a very curious Letter, and I hope it will not be unprofitable there; nor in Germany, where it is printed in Dutch.

§ 175. 20. After this I thought, according to Bishop Usher 's Method, the next sort that I should write for, is those that are under the work of Conversion; because by Half-Conversion Multitudes prove deceived Hypocrites: Therefore I published a small Book entitled, Directions and persuasions to a sound Conversion; which though I thought more apt to move than the former, yet through the Fault of the covetous Booksellers, and because it was held at too high a Price (which hindered many other of my Writings), there were not past two or three Impressions of them sold.

§ 176. 21. About that time being apprehensive how great a part of our Work lay in catechizing the Aged who were Ignorant, as well as Children, and especially in serious Conference with them about the Matters of their Salvation, I thought it best to draw in all the Ministers of the Country with me, that the Benefit might extend the farther, and that each one might have the less Opposition. Which having procured, at their desire I wrote a Catechism, and the Articles of our Agreement, and before them an earnest Exhortation to our Ignorant People to submit to this way (for we were afraid lest they would not have submitted to it): And this was then published. The Catechism was also a brief Confession of Faith, being the Enlargement of a Confession which I had before printed in an open Sheet, when we set up Church Discipline.

§ 177. 22. When we set upon this great Work, it was thought best to begin with a Day of Fasting and Prayer by all the Ministers at Worcester, where they desired me to preach: But Weakness and other things hindered me from that Day; but to compensate that, I enlarged and published the Sermon which I had prepared for them, and entitled the Treatise, Gildas Salvianus (because I imitated Gildas and Salvianus in my Liberty of Speech to the Pastors of the Churches) or The reformed Pastor: I have very great Cause to be thankful to God for the Success of that Book, as hoping many thousand Souls are the better for it, in that it prevailed with many Ministers to set upon that Work which I there exhort them to: Even from beyond the Seas, I have had Letters of Request, to direct them how they might bring on that Work according as that Book had convinced them that it was their Duty. If God would but reform the Ministry, and set them on their Duties zealously and faithfully, the People would certainly be reformed: All Churches either rise or fall as the Ministry doth rise or fall, (not in Riches and worldly Grandeur) but in Knowledge, Zeal and Ability for their Work. But since Bishops were restored this Book is useless, and that Work not meddled with.

§ 178. 23. When the part of the Parliament called the Rump or Commonwealth was sitting, the Anabaptists, Seekers &c. flew so high against Tythes and Ministry, that it was much feared lest they would have prevailed at last: Wherefore I drew up a Petition for the Ministry, which is printed under the Name of the Worcestershire Petition, which being presented by Coll. John Bridges and Mr. Thomas Foley, was accepted with Thanks; and seemed to have a considerable tendency to some good Resolutions.

§ 179. But the Sectaries greatly regard against that Petition, and one wrote a vehement Invective against it; which I answered in a Paper called, The Defense of the Worcestershire Petition (which by an Over-sight is mained by the want of the Answer to one of the Accusers Queries). I knew not what kind of Person he was that I wrote against, but it proved to be a Quaker, they being just now rising, and this being the first of their Books, (as far as I can remember) that I had everseen.

§ 180. 24. Presently upon this the Quakers began to make a great Stirr among us, and acted the Parts of Men in Raptures, and spake in the manner of Men inspired, and everywhere railed against Tythes and Ministers. They sent many Papers of Queries to divers Ministers about us: And to one of the chief of them I wrote an Answer, and gave them as many more Questions to answer, enti • uling it, The Quakers Catechism: These Pamphlets being but one or two Days Work, were no great Interruption to my better Labors, and as they were of small Worth, so also of small Cost. The same Ministers of our Country that are now silenced, are they that the Quakers most vehemently opposed, meddling little with the rest. The marvelous concurrence of Instruments telleth us, that one principal Agent doth act them all. I have oft asked the Quakers lately, why they chose the same Ministers to revile, whom all the Drunkards and Swearers rail against? And why they cried out in our Assemblies, Come down thou Deceiver, thou Hireling, thou Dog; and now never meddle with the Pastors or Congregations? And they answer, 1. That these Men sin in the open Light, and need none to discover them. 2. That the Spirit hath his times both of Severity, and of Lenity. But the Truth is, they knew then they might be bold without any Fear of Suffering by it: And now it is time for them to save their Skins; they suffer enough for their own Assemblies.

181. 25. The great Advancement of the Popish Interest by their secret agency among the Sectaries, Seekers, Quakers, Behmenists, &c. did make me think it necessary to do something directly against Popery; and so I published three Disputations against them, one to prove our Religion safe, and another to prove their Religion unsafe; and a third to show that they overthrew the Faith by the ill Resolution of their Faith. This Book I entitled, The safe Religion.

§ 182. 26. About the same time I fell into troublesome Acquaintance with one Clement Writer of Worcester, an ancient Man that (had long seemed a forward Professor of Religiousness, and of a good Conversation, but was now perverted to I know not what: A Seeker he professed to be, but I easily perceived that he was either a juggling Papist or an Infidel; but I more suspected the latter: He had written a scornful Book against the Ministry, called Ius Divinum Presbyterii, and after two more against the Scripture and against me, one called Fides Divina, the other's Title I remember not: His Assertion to me was, that no Man is bound to believe in Christ that doth not see confirming Miracles himself with his own Eyes.

By the Provocations of this Apostate, I wrote a Book, called, The unreasanableness of Infidelity, consisting of four Parts: The first, of the extrinsic Witness of the Spirit by Miracles, &c. to which I annexed a Disputation against Clement Writer, to prove that the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles, oblige us to believe that did not see them. The Second part was of the intrinsic Witness of the Spirit, to Christ and Scripture. The Third was of the Sin or Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. And the Fourth was to repress the Arrogancy of reasoning against Divine Revelations. All this was intended but as a Supplement to the Second Part of The Saints Rest, where I had pleaded for the Truth of Scripture: But this Subject I have since more fully handled in my Reasons of the Christian Religion.

At the time Mr. Gilbert, a learned Minister in Shropshire wrote a Small concise Tractate in Latin (as against a Book of Dr. Owen 's, though his intimate Friend) to prove that Christ's Death was not necessary absolutely, but of Divine Free Choice; and in answer to that Book, I wrote a brief Premonition to my Treatise against Infidelity to decide that Controversy.

§ 183. 27. Mr. Tho. Foley being High Sheriff, desired me to preach before the Judges; which I did on Gal. 6. 16. and enlarged it to a Treatise, entitled, The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ; for Mortification; and put an Epistle somewhat large before it to provoke rich Men to good Works.

§ 184. 28. Some Men about this time persuaded me, that if I would write a few single Sheets on several Subjects, though the Style were not very moving, yet it would do more good than larger Volumes, because most people will buy and read them, who will neither buy nor read the larger. Whereupon I wrote first, One Sheet against the Quakers, containing those Reasons which should satisfy all Sober Men against their way.

§ 185. 29. The Second Sheet I called A Winding Sheet for Popery, containing a Summary of Moderate and Effectual Reasons against Popery: (which single sheet no Papist hitherto hath answered).

§ 186. 30. The third Sheet was called [ One Sheet for the Ministry, against the Malignants of all sorts ); containing those Reasons for the present Ministry which show the greatness of the Sin of those that set against them. It was intended then against the Quakers and other Sectarian Enemies to the Ministry: but is as useful for these Times, and against those that on other pretences hate, and silence, and suppress them; and might tell their Consciences what they do.

§ 187. 31. The fourth Sheet I called [A Second Sheet for the Ministry ]; being a Defense of their Office as continued, against the Seekers, who pretend that the Ministry is ceased and lost: And it may serve against the Papists that question our Call for want of a Succession; and all their Spawn of Sectaries that are still setting themselves against the Ministry, (and against the Sacred Scriptures).

§ 188. 32. Mr. William Montford being chosen Bailiff of Kidderminster, desired me to write him down a few brief Instructions for the due Execution of his Office of Magistracy, that he might so pass it as to have Comfort and not Trouble in the Review; which having done, considering how many Mayors, and Bailiffs, and Country Justices needed it as well as he, I printed it in an open Sheet to stick upon a Wall, Entituled, Directions for Justices of Peace, especially in Corporations; for the Discharge of their Duties to God; (suited to those Times).

§ 189. 33. Mr. John Dury having spent thirty Years in Endeavors to reconcile the Lutherans and Calvanists, was now going over Sea again upon that Work, and desired the Judgment of our Association how it should be successfully expedited; which at their desire I drew up more largely in Latin, and more briefly in English: The English Letter he printed, as my Letter to Mr. Dury for Pacification.

§ 190. 34. About that time Mr. Jonathan Hanmer of Devonshire wrote a Treatise for Confirmation, as the most expedient means to reform our Churches, and reconcile all that disagree about the Qualification of Church Members: I liked the Design so well (having before written for it in my Treatise of Baptism) that being requested, I put a large Epistle before it; and after that, when some Brethren desired me to produce more Scripture Proof for it than he had done, I wrote a small Treatise called, [ Confirmation and Restauration the necessary means to Reformation and Reconciliation ]. But the times changed before it could be much practiced.

§ 191. 35. Sergeant Shepherd, an honest Lawyer, wrote a little Book of Sincer • ty and Hypocrisy; and in the end of it Mr. Tho. Barlow (afterward Bishop of Lincoln ) wrote (without his Name) an Appendix in Confutation of a supposed Opinion of mine, that Saving Grace differeth not Specie but Gradu from Common Grace: To which I replied in a short Discourse called [ Of Saving Faith, &c.] I had most highly valued the Author whom I wrote against, long before, for his Six Exercitations in the end of Schibler's Metaphysics: But in his Attempt against me, he came quite below himself, as I made manifest; and he resolved to make no Answer to it. In this Tractate the Printer plaid his part so shamefully, that the Book is scarcely to be understood.

§ 192. 36. Being greatly apprehensive of the Commonness and Danger of the Sin of Selfishness, as the Summ and Root of all positive Evil, I preached many Sermons against it; and at the Request of some Friends I published them, entitled A. Treatise of Self-denial; which found better acceptance than most of my other, but yet prevented not the ruin of Church and State, and Millions of Souls by that Sin.

§ 193. 37. After that I published, Five Disputations about Church-Government, in order to the Reconciliation of the differing Parties: In the first I proved that the English Diocesance Prelacy is intolerable (which none hath answered): In the Second I have proved the Validity of the Ordination then exercised without Diocesans in England (which no Man hath answered, though many have urged Men to be re-ordained). In the third I proved that there are dives sorts of Episcopacy lawful and desirable. In the fourth and fifth I show the lawfulness of some Ceremonies and of a Liturgy, and what is unlawful here.

This Book being published when Bishops, Liturgy and Ceremonies were most decried and opposed, was of good use to declare my Judgment when the King came in; for if I had said as much then, I had been judged but a Temporizer: But as it was effectual to settle many in a Moderation, so it made abundance of Conformists afterwards (or was pretended at least to give them Satisfaction): Though it never meddled with the greatest Parts of Conformity (Renouncing Vows, Assent and Consent to all things in three Books, &c. ); and though it unanswerably confuted our Prelacy and Re-ordination, and consequently the Renunciation of the Vow against Prelacy; and opposed the Cross in Baptism. But Sicvitant Stulti Vitia (as my Aphorisms made some Arminians). If you discover an Error to an injudicious Man, he reeleth into the contrary Error, and it is hard to stop him in the middle Verity.

§ 194. 38. At the same time I published another Book against Popery, fit for the defensive part, and instructing Protestants how to answer any Papist. It is entitled, A Key for Catholics, to open the juggling of the Jesuits, and satisfy all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God.

In this, Treatise, proving that the Blood of the King is not by Papists to be charged upon Protestants, I plainly hazarded my Life against the Powers that then were; and grievously incensed Sir H. vane (as is before declared): And yet Mr. I. N. was so tender of the Papists Interest, that having before been offended with me for a Petition against Popery, and (a Justice of all times) spake against it on the Bench, and his Displeasure increased by this Book; he took occasion since the King came in, to write against me for those very Passages which condemned the King-killers: Because comparing the Case with the Doctrine and Practice of the Papists, I shown that the Sectarians and Cromwelians had of the two a more plausible Pretence, (which I there recited) he confuteth those Pretence of theirs as if they had been my own; thereby to make the World believe that I wrote for the King's Death, in the very Pages where to the hazard of my Life I wrote against it; when he himself took the Engagement against the King and the House of Lord's, and was a Justice under Oliver, and more than so, signed Orders for the sequestering of others of the King's Party. But the great Indignation against this Book and the former, is, that they were by Epistles directed to Ri. Cromwell as Lord Protector, which I did only to provoke him that had Power, to use it well, when the Parliament had sworn Fidelity to him; and that without any Word of Approbation to his Title.

Yet those that were not prejudiced by partiality against this Book (my Key for Catholics ) have let me know that it hath not been without Success: It being indeed a sufficient Armory, for to furnish a Protestant to defend his Religion against all the Assaults of the Papists whatsoever, and teacheth him how to answers all their Books. The second part doth briefly deal with the French and Grotian Party, that are for the Supremacy of a Council, at least as to the Legislative Power, and showeth that we never had a general Council, nor can it be at all expected.

§ 195. 39. But the Book which hath furnished my Enemies with matter of Reviling (which none must dare to answer) is my Holy Commonwealth: The Occasion of it was this; when our Pretorian Sectarian Bands had cut all Bonds and Pull'd down all Government, and after the Death of the King had twelve Years kept out his Son, few Men saw any probability of his Restitution; and every self-conceited Fellow was ready to offer his Model for a new Form of Government: Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan had pleased many: Mr. Tho. White the great Papist, had written his Politicks in English for the Interest of the Protector, to prove that Subject ought to submit and subject themselves to such a Change: And now Mr. James Harrington (they say by the help of Mr. H. Nevill ) had written a Book in Folio for a Democracy, called Oceana, seriously describing a Form near to the Venetian, and setting the People upon the Desires of a Change: And after this Sir H. Vane and his Party were about their Sectarian Democratical Model, which Stubbs defended; and Regars and Needham (and Mr. Bagshaw had written against Monarchy before). In the end of an Epistle before my Book of ( Crucifying the World ) I had spoken a few Words against this Innovation and Opposition to Monarchy; and having especially touched upon Oceana and Leviathan, Mr. Harrington seemed in a Bethelhem Rage; for by way of Scorn he printed half a Sheet of foolish Jeers, in such Words as Idiots or Drunkards use, railing at Ministers as a Pack of Fools and Knaves, and by his gibberish Derision persuading Men that we deserved no other Answer than such Scorn and Nonsense as beseemeth Fools: And with most insolent Pride he carried it, as if neither I nor any Ministers understood at all what Policy was; but prated against we knew not what, and had presumed to speak against other Men's Art, which he was Master of, and his Knowledge to such Idiots as we incomprehensible. This made me think it fit, having given that General hint against his Oceana, to give a more particular Charge, and withal to give the World and him an Account of my Political Principles, and to show what I held as well as what I denied; which I did in that Book called, Political Aphorisms, or A Holy Commonwealth, as contrary to his Heathenish Commonwealth: In which I plead the Cause of Monarchy as better than Democracy and Aristocracy; but as under God the Universal Monarch. Here Bishop Morley hath his Matter of Charge against me; of which one part is that I spake against Unlimited Monarchy, because God himself hath limited all Monarchs. If I had said that Laws limit Monarchs, I might among some men be thought a Traitor, and inexcusable: but to say that God limiteth Monarchs, I thought had never before been chargeable with Treason, or opposed by any that believed that there is a God. If they are indeed unlimited in respect of God, we have many God's or no God. But now it is dangerous to meddle with these matters: Most men say now, Let God defend himself.

In the end of this Book is an Appendix concerning the Cause of the Parliaments first War, which was thus occasioned: Sir Francis Nethersole a Religious Knight, who was against the lawfulness of the War on both sides, sent his man to me, with Letters to advise me to tell Cromwell of his Usurpation, and to counsel him to call in the King; of which when I had given him satisfaction, he sent him against with more Letters and Books, to convince me of the unlawfulness of the Parliament's War: And others attempting the same at the same time; and the Confusions which the Army had brought upon us, being such as made me very much disposed to think ill of those beginnings which had no better an end, I thought it best to publish my Detestation and Lamentation for those Rebellious Proceedings of the Army, (which I did as plainly as could be born, both in an Epistle to them, and in a Meditation in the end), and withal to declare the very Truth, that hereby I was made suspicious and doubtful of the beginnings or first Cause, but yet was not able to answer the Arguments which the Lawyers of the Parliament then gave, and which had formerly inclined me to that side. I conconfessed, that if men Miscarriages and ill Accidents would warrant me to Condemn the beginnings which were for another Cause, then I should have condemned them: But that being not the way, I found myself yet unable to answer the first Reasons; and therefore laid them down together, desiring the help of others to answer them, professing my own suspicion, and my daily prayers to God for just satisfaction. And this Paper is it that containeth all my Crimes. Against this, one Tomkins wrote a Book, called, The Rebels Plea. But I wait in silence till God enlighten us.

In the beginning of this Book having reprehended the Army, I answer a Book of Sir Henry Vane 's called, The Healing Question. It was published when Richard Cromwell was pulled down, and Sir H. Vane 's New Commonwealth was forming.

§ 196. 40. About the same time, one that called himself W. Johnson, (but I hear his Name is Mr. Terret ) a Papist, engaged me in a Controversy, about the perpetual visibility of the Church; which afterwards I published; the story of which you have more at large in the following part of this Book. In the latter I inserted a Letter of one Thomas Smyth a Papist, with my Answer to it, which it seemeth occasioned his recovery from them, as is manifest in a Letter of Mr. Thomas Stanley his Kinsman (a sober godly man in Breadstreet ) which I by his own consent subjoined. To this Book Mr. Johnson hath at last replied; and I have since returned an Answer to him.

§ 197. 41. Having been desired in the time of our Associations, to draw up those Terms which all Christian Churches may hold Communion upon; I published them, though too late for any such use (till God give men better minds) that the World might see what our Religion and our Terms of Communion were; and that if after Ages prove more peaceable, they may have some light from those that went before them. It consisteth of three parts:

The first containeth the Christian Religion, which all are positively to profess, that is, Either to subscribe the Scriptures in general, and the ancient Creeds in particular; or at most, The Confession (or Articles) annexed: e.g. [ I do believe all the Sacred Canonical Scripture, which all Christian Churches do receive; and particularly I believe in God the Father Almighty, &c.]

The second Part (instead of Books of unnecessary Canons) containeth seven or eight Points of Practice for Church-Order, which, so it be practiced, it is no great matter whether it be subscribed or not. And here it must be understood that these are written for Times of Liberty, in which Agreement rather than Force doth procure Unity and Communion.

The third Part containeth the larger-Description of the Office of the Ministry, and consequently of all the Ordinances of Worship; which need not be subscribed, but none should preach against it, nor omit the practice; except Peace require that the Point of Infant Baptism be left free.

This small Book is called by the Name of Universal Concord; which when I wrote, I thought to have published a Second Part, viz. a large Volume containing the particular Terms of Concord. between all Parties capable of Concord. But the Change of the Times hath necessarily changed that purpose.

§ 198. 42. The next published was a Sermon before the Parliament, the day before they voted in the King, being a Day of Humiliation appointed to that end. It is called A Sermon of Repentance, of which more afterward.

§ 199. 43. The next published was a Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen at Paul's, being on their Day of Rejoicing for General Monk 's Success to bring in the King: It is called A Sermon of Right Rejoicing.

§ 200. 44. The next was a Sermon of the Life of Faith, preached before the King, being all that every I was called to preach before him, when I had been sworn his Chaplain in Ordinary: of which more afterward.

§ 201. 45. The next was called A Believer's last Work, being prepared for the Funeral of Mrs. Mary Hanmer, Mother to my Wife (then intended, but after married): Its use is to prepare for a Comfortable Death.

§ 202. 46. Before this (which I forgot in its proper place) I published a Treatise of Death, called, The last Enemy to be overcome, showing the true Nature of the Enmity of Death, and its uses: Being a Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Elizabeth Baker, Wife to Mr. Joseph Baker Minister at Worcester; with some Notes of her Life.

§ 203. 47. Another was called, The vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite: A Discovery of the Nature and Mischief of a Formal vain Religion, preached at Westminister-Abby: with a Sermon annexed of the Prosperity of Fools. This being preached at Covent-Garden was unjustly accused, and published by way of Vindication, with the former.

§ 204. 48. The next was a Treatise on Luke 10. 42. One thing is needful; called, ( A Saint or a Bruit ) showing the Necessity, Utility, Safety, Honor and Pleasure of a Holy Life, and evincing the Truth of our Religion against Atheists and Infidels and Profane ones.

§ 205. 49. The next was a Treatise of Self-knowledge, preached at Dunstan 's West, called, The Mischiefs of Self-ignorance, and Benefits of Self-acquaintance; which was published partly to vindicate it from many false Accusations, and partly at the desire of the Countess of Balcarres to whom it was directed. It was fitted to the Disease of this • urious Age, in which each man is ready to devour others, because they do not know themselves.

§ 206. 50. The next was a Treatise called The Divine Life: which containeth three Parts; The first is of the Right Knowledge of God, for the imprinting of his Image on the Soul, by the knowledge of his Attributes, &c. The second is, Of walking with God. The third is, Of improving Solitude to converse with God, when we are forsaken by all Friends, or separated from them.

The Occasion of the publishing of this Treatise was this; The Countess of Balcarres being going into Scotland, after her adobe in England, being deeply sensible of the loss of the Company of those Friends which she left behind her, desired me to preach the last Sermon which she was to hear from me on those words of Christ, John 16. 32. Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be Scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. ] At her request I preached on this Text; and being afterward desired by her to give it her in Writing, and the Publication being her design, I prefixed the two other Treatises to make it more considerable, and published them together. The Treatise is upon the most Excellent Subject, but not elaborate at all; being but Popular Sermons preached in the midst of diverting Businesses, Accusations, and malicious Clamours.

When I offered it to the Press, I was fain to leave out the quantity of one Sermon in the end of the second Treatise [ That God took Enoch]: wherein I shown what a mercy it is to one that hath walked with God, to be taken to him from this World; because it is a dark, a wicked, a malicious, and implacable, a treacherous deceitful World, &c. All which the Bishop's Chaplain must have expunged, because men would think it was all spoken of them! And so the World hath got a Protection against the force of our Baptismal Vow.

§ 207. Because I have said so much in the Epistles of these two Books of the Countess of Balcarres, the Reader may expect some further satisfaction of her Quality, and the Cause.

She is Daughter to the late Earl of Seaforth in Scotland, towards the High-lands, and was married to the Earl of Balcarres, a Covenanter, but an Enemy to Cromwell 's perfidiousness, and true to the Person and Authority of the King: with the Earl of Glencarne he kept up the last War for the King against Cromwell, and his Lady, through dearness of Affection, marched with him, and lay out of doors with him on the Mountains. At last Cromwell drove them out of Scotland, and they went together beyond Sea to the King; where they long followed the Court, and he was taken for the Head of the Presbyterians with the King, and by evil Instruments fell out with the Lord Chancellor, who prevailing against him, upon some advantage he was for a time forbidden the Court; the Grief whereof added to the Distempers he had contracted by his Warfare on the cold and hungry Mountains, cast him into a Consumption, of which he died. He was a Lord of excellent Learning, Judgment and Honesty; none being praised equally with him for Learning and Understanding in all Scotland.

When the Earl of Lauderdaile (his near Kinsman and great Friend) was Prisoner in Portsmouth and Windsor-Castle, he fell into acquaintance with my Books, and so valued them that he read them all, and took Notes of them, and earnestly commended them to the Earl of Balcarres (with the King). The Earl of Balcarres met at the first sight with some Passages where he thought I spake too favourably of the Papists, and differed from many other Protestants, and so cast them by, and sent the reason of his distaste to the Earl of Lauderdaile: who pressed him but to read one of the Books over; which he did; and so read them all (as I have seen many of them marked with his hand); and was drawn to over-value them more than the Earl of Lauderdaile.

Hereupon his Lady reading them also, and being a Woman of very strong Love and Friendship, with extraordinary Entireness swallowed up in her Husband's Love, for the Books sake and her Husband's sake, she became a most affectionate Friend to me, before she ever saw me. While she was in France, being zealous for the King's Restoration (for whose Cause her Husband had pawned and ruined his Estate), by the Earl of Lauderdaile 's direction, she with Sir Robert Murray, got divers Letters from the Pastors and others there, to bear witness of the King's sincerity in the Protestant Religion (among which there is one to me from Mr. Gaches ). Her great Wisdom, Modesty, Piety and Sincerity, made her accounted the Saint at the Court. When she came over with the King, her extraordinary Respects obliged me to be so often with her, as gave me Acquaintance with her Eminency in all the foresaid Virtues: She is of solid Understanding in Religion, for her Sex; and of Prudence much more than ordinary; and of great Integrity and Constancy in her Religion, and a great Hater of Hypocrisy, and faithful to Christ in an unfaithful World; and she is somewhat over-much affectionate to her Friend; which hath cost her a great deal of Sorrow, in the loss of her Husband, and since of other special Friends, and may cost her more when the rest forsake her, as many in Prosperity use to do those that will not forsake their Fidelity to Christ. Her eldest Son, the young Earl of Balcarres, a very hopeful Youth, died of a strange Disease, two Stones being found in his Heart, of which one was very great. Being my constant Auditor and over-respectful Friend, I had occasion for the just Praises and Acknowledgments which I have given her; which the occasioning of these Books hath caused me to mention.

§ 208. 51. After our Dispute at the Savoy, somebody printed our Papers (most of them) given in to them in that Treaty; of which the Petition for Peace, the Reformed Liturgy (except the Prayer for the King which Dr. W. wrote), the large Reply to their Answer of our Exceptions, and the two last Addresses were my writing: But in the first Proposals, and the Exceptions against the Liturgy, I had less to do than some others.

§ 209. 52. When the grievous Plague began at London, I printed a half-sheet (to stick on a Wall) for the use of the Ignorant and Ungodly who were sick, or in danger of the Sickness: (for the Godly I thought had less need, and would read those large Books, which are plentifully among us). And I the rather did it, because many well-winded People that are about the Sick, that are ignorant and unprepared, and know not what to say to them, may not only read so short a Paper to them, but see there in what method such Persons are to be dealt with in such a Case of Extremity, that they may themselves enlarge as they see Cause.

§ 210. 53. At that time one Mr. Nathaniel Lane wrote to me to entreat me to write one sheet or two for the use of poor Families, who will not buy or read any bigger Books. Though I knew that brevity would unavoidably cause me to leave out much necessary matter, or else to write in a Style so concise and close as will be little moving to any but close judicious Readers, yet I yielded to his persuasions, and thought it might be better than nothing, and might be read by many that would read no larger; and so I wrote two Sheets for poor Families: The first containing the method and motives for the Conversion of the Ungodly. The second containing the Description or Character of a true Christian, or the necessary Parts of Christian Duty, for the direction of Beginners in a Godly Life. These three last Sheets were printed by the favor of the Archbishop's Chaplain, when the Bishop of London 's Chaplain had put me out of hope of printing any more.

With all these Writings I have troubled the World already : and these are all except Epistles to other men's Works; (as one before Mr. Swinnock 's Books of Regeneration; one before Mr. Hopkin 's Book; one before Mr. Eedes; one before Mr. Matthew Pool 's Model for Advancing Learning; one before Mr. Benjamin Baxter 's Book; one before Mr. Jonathan Hanmer 's Exercitation of Confirmation; one before Mr. Lawrence of Sickness; two before two of Mr. Tomb 's Books; and some others; (of which there are two that I must give some account of).

The Bookseller being to print the Assembly's Works, with the Texts cited at length, desired me by an Epistle to recommend it to Families: I thought it a thing arrogant and unfit for a single Person, who was none of the Synod, to put an Epistle before their Works. But when he made me know that it was the desire of some Reverend Ministers, I wrote an Epistle, but required him to put it into other men's hands, to publish or suppress, according to their Judgment: but to be sure that they printed all or none. The Bookseller gets Dr. Manton to put an Epistle before the Book, who inserted mine in a differing Character in his own, (as mine, but not naming me): But he leaveth out a part, which it seems, was not pleasing to all. When I had commended the Catechisms for the use of Families, I added, That [ I hoped the Assembly intended not all in that long Confession and those Catechisms, to be imposed as a Test of Christian Communion; nor to disown all that scrupled any word in it; If they had I could not have commended it for any such use, though it be useful for the instruction of Families, &c.] All this is left out, which I thought meet to open, lest I be there misunderstood.

Also take notice that the Poem prefixed to Mr. Vines 's Book of the Sacrament, was not printed by any order of mine. Having received the Printed Book from the Stationer as Gift, it renewed my Sorrow for the Author's Death; which provoked me to write that Poem the same Night, in the Exercise of my Sorrow, and gave it the Donor for his Book; and he printed it without my knowledge.

§ 211. Manuscripts that are yet unprinted, which lie by me, are these following.

1. A Treatise in Folio, called, A Christian Directory, or Sum of Practical Divinity, In four Tomes: The first called Christian Ethics; The second Christian Ecclesiastics; The third, Christian Economics; The fourth, Christian Polisticks. It containeth bare Directions for the practice of our Duties in all these respects; as Christians, as Church-Members, as Members of the Family, and as Members of the Commonwealth: But there is a sufficient Explication of the Subject usually premised, and the Directions themselves are the Answers of most useful Cases of Conscience thereabouts, though the Cases be not named by way of Question: But where it was necessary the Cases are distinctly named and handled.

My intent in writing this, was at once to satisfy that motion so earnestly made by Bishop Usher, mentioned in the Preface to my Call to the Unconverted, which I had been hindered from doing by parts before: And I had some little respect to the request which was long ago sent to him from some Transmarine Divines, to help them to a Sum of Practical Divinity in the English method: But though necessary brevity hath deprived it of all life and luster of Style, it being but a Skeleton of Practical Heads: yet is it so large by reason of the multitude of things to be handled, that I see it will not be of so common a use as I first intended it. To young Ministers, and to the more intelligent and diligent sort of Masters of Families, (who would have a Practical Directory at hand to teach them every Christian Duty, and how to help others in the practice) it may be not unserviceable.

2. Another Manuscript is called [ A Christian indeed ]: It consisteth of two Parts; The first is a Discovery of the calamities which follow the weakness and faultiness of many true Christians, and Directions for their strengthening and growth in Grace: which was intended as the third particular Tractate in fulfilling the foresaid request of Bishop Usher; The Call to the Unconverted being for that sort; and the Directions for a sound Conversion, being for the second sort, who are yet as it were in the birth: And this being for the weaker and faultier sort, of Christians, which are the third sort. To which is added a second Part, containing the just Description of a sound confirmed Christian (whom I call a Christian indeed) in sixty Characters of Marks; and with each of them is adjoined the Character of the weak Christian, and of the Hypocrite about the same part of Duty. But all is but briefly done (the Heads being many) without any life or ornament of Style.

This short Treatise I offered to Mr. Thomas Grigg, the Bishop of London 's Chaplain, to be licensed for the Press, (a man that but lately Conformed, and professed special respect to me); but he utterly refused it; pretending that it favored of Discontent, and would be interpreted as against the Bishops and the Times. And the matter was, that in several Passages I spake of the Prosperity of the Wicked, and the Adversity of the Godly, and described Hypocrites by their Enmity to the Godly, and their forsaking the Truth for fear of Suffering, and described the Godly by their undergoing the Enmity of the wicked World, and being steadfast whatever it shall cost them, &c. And all this was interpreted as against the Church or Prelatists. I asked him whether they would license that of mine which they would do of another man's against whom they had not displeasure (in the same words): And he told me No: because the words would receive their interpretation with the Readers from the mind of the Author. And he asked me, whether I did not think myself that Nonconformists would interpret it as against the Times. I answered him, yes, I thought they would; and so they do all those Passages of Scripture which speak of Persecution and the Suffering of the Godly; but I hoped Bibles should be licensed for all that. I asked him whether that was the Rule which they went by, that they would license nothing of mine which they thought any Readers would interpret as against the Bishops or their Party. And when he told me plainly, that it was their Rule or Resolution, I took it for my final Answer, and purposed never to offer him more: For I despair of writing that which men will not interpret according to their own Condition and Opinion; especially against those whose Crimes are notorious before the World. This made me think what a troublesome thing is Guilt, which, as Seneca saith, is like a Sore, which is pained not only with a little touch, but sometime upon a conceit that it is touched; and maketh a man think that every Briar is a Sergeant to Arrest him; or with Cain, that everyone that seeth him would kill him! A Cainites heart and life hath usually the attendance of a Cainities Conscience. I did but try the Licenser with this small inconsiderable Script, that I might know what to expect for my more valued Writings! And I told him that I had troubled the World with so much already, and said enough for one man's part, that I could not think it very necessary to say anymore to them; and therefore I should accept of his discharge. But fain they would have had my Controversal Writings, (about Universal Redemption, Predetermination, &c. in which my Judgment is more pleasing to them); but I was unwilling to publish them alone, while the Practical Writings are refused. And I give God thanks that I once saw Times of greater Liberty (though under an Usurper); or else as far as I can discern, scarce any of my Books had ever seen the Light.

3. Another Manuscript that lieth by me, is a Disputation for some Universality of Redemption , which hath lain by me near Twenty years unfinished, partly because many narrow minded Brethren would have been offended with it, and and partly because at last came out after Amyraut, and Davenant 's Diss • rtations, a Treatise of Dallaeus, which contained the same things, but especially the same Testimonies of concordant Writers which I had prepared to produce.

4. There is also by me an imperfect Manuscript of Predetermination.

5. And divers Disputations of sufficient Grace.

6. And divers miscellaneous Disputations on several Questions in Divinity, cursorily managed at our Monthly Meetings.

7. And my two Replies to Mr. Cartwright 's Exceptions against my Aphorisms.

8. And my two Replies to Mr. Lawson 's Animadversions on the same Book.

9. And my Reply to Mr. John Warren 's Animadversions (which being first done is least digested).

10. And the beginning of a Reply to Dr. Wallis 's Animadversions.

11. And a Discourse of the Power of Magistrates in Religion, against those that would not have them to meddle in such Matters, being an Assize Sermon preached at Shrewsbury when Coll. Thomas Hunt was Sheriff.

12. And some Fragments of Poetry.

13. And a Multitude of Theological Letters.

14. And an imperfect Treatise of Christ's Dominion, being many popular Sermons preached twenty Years ago; and very rude and undigested; with divers others.

§ 212. And concerning almost all my Writings I must confess, that my own Judgment is, that fewer well studied and polished had been better: but the Reader who can safely censure the Books is not fit to censure the Author, unless he had been upon the Place, and acquainted with all the Occasions and Circumstances: Indeed for the Saints Rest I had Four Months Vacancy to write it (but in the midst of continual Languishing and Medicine): But for the rest I wrote them in the Crowd of all my other Employments, which would allow me no great Leisure for Polishing and Exactness, or any Ornament; so that I scarce ever wrote one Sheet twice over, nor stayed to make any Blo • s or Interlinings, but was fain to let it go as it was first conceived: And when my own Desire was rather to stay upon one thing long, than run over many, some sudden Occasions or other extorted almost all my Writings from me: and the Apprehensions of Present Usefulness or Necessity prevailed against all other Motives. So that the Divines which were at hand with me still put me on and approved of what I did, because they were moved by Present Necessities as well as I: But those that were far off, and felt not those nearer Motives, did rather wish that I had taken the other way, and published a few elaborate Writings; and I am ready myself to be of their Mind, when I forgot the Case that then I stood in, and have lost the Sense of former Motives. The opposing of the Anabaptists, Separatists, Quakers, Antinomians, Seekers, &c. were Works which then seemed necessary; and so did the Debates about Church Government and Communion which touched our present Practice; but now all those Reasons are past and gone, I could wish I had rather been doing some work of more durable Usefulness. But even to a foreseeing Man, who knoweth what will be of longest use, it is hard to discern how far that which is presently needful may be omitted, for the sake of a greater future Good. There are some other works, wherein my Heart hath more been set than any of those forementioned; in which I have met with great Obstructions. For I must declare that in this as in many other Matters I have found that we are not the Choosers of our own Employments, no more than of our own Successes.

§ 213. Because it is Soul-Experiments which those that urge me to this kind of Writing, do expect that I should especially communicate to others, and I have said little of God's dealing with my Soul since the time of my younger Years, I shall only give the Reader so much Satisfaction, as to acquaint him truly what Change God hath made upon my Mind and Heart since those unriper times, and wherein I now differ in Judgment and Disposition from myself: And for anymore particular Account of Heart-Occurrences, and God's Operations on me, I think it somewhat unsavory to recite them; seeing God's Dealings are much what the same with all his Servants in the main, and the Points wherein he varieth are usually so small, that I think not such fit to be repeated: Nor have I anything extraordinary to glory in, which is not common to the rest of my Brethren, who have the same Spirit, and are Servants of the same Lord. And the true Reason why I do adventure so far upon the Censure of the World, as to tell them wherein the Case is altered with me, is that I may take off young inexperienced Christians from being over confident in their first Apprehensions, or overvaluing their first degrees of Grace, or too much applauding and following unfurnished inexperienced Men; but may somewhat be directed what Mind and Course of Life to prefer, by the Judgment of one that hath tried both before them.

1. The Temper of my Mind hath somewhat altered with the Temper of my Body. When I was young, I was more vigorous, affectionate, and servant in Preaching, Conference and Prayer, than (ordinarily) I can be now; my Style was more extemporate and lax, but by the Advantage of Affection, and a very familiar moving Voice and Utterance, my preaching then did more affect the Auditory, than many of the last Years before I gave over Preaching; but yet what I delivered was much more raw, and had more Passages that would not bear the Trial of accurate Judgments; and my Discourses had both less Substance and less Judgment than of late.

2. My understanding was then quicker, and could easilier manage anything that was newly presented to it upon a sudden; but it is since better furnished, and acquainted with the ways of Truth and Error, and with a Multitude of particular Mistakes of the World, which then I was the more in Danger of, because I had only the Faculty of Knowing them, but did not actually know them. I was then like a Man of a quick Understanding that was to travail a way which he never went before, or to cast up an Account which he never labored in before, or to play on an Instrument of Music which he never saw before: And I am now like one of somewhat a slower Understanding (by that praematura Senectus which weakness and excessive bleedings brought me to) who is travelling a Way which he hath often gone, and is casting up an Account which he hath often cast up, and hath ready at hand, and that is playing on an Instrument which he hath often played on: So that I can very confidently say, that my Judgment is much sounder and firmer now than it was then; for though I am now as competent Judge of the Actings of my own Understanding then, yet I can judge of the Effects: And when I peruse the Writings which I wrote in my younger Years, I can find the Footsteps of my unfurnished Mind, and of my Emptyness and Insufficiency: So that the Man that followed my Judgment then, was liker to have been misled by me, than he that should follow it now.

And yet, that I may not say worse than it deserveth of my former measure of Understanding, I shall truly tell you what change I find now, in the perusal of my own Writings. Those Points which then I thoroughly studied, my Judgment is the same of now, as it was then; and therefore in the Substance of my Religion, and in those Controversies which I then searched into, with some extraordinary Diligence, I find not my mind disposed to a Change: But in divers Points that I studied slightly and by the halves, and in many things which I took upon trust from others, I have found since that my Apprehensions were either erroneous, or very lame. And those things which I was Orthodox in, I had either insufficient Reasons for, or a mixture of some sound and some insufficient ones, or else an insufficient Apprehension of those Reasons; so that I scarcely knew what I seemed to know: And though in my Writings I found little in substance which my present Judgment differeth from, yet in my Aphorisms and Saints Rest; (which were my first Writings) I find some raw unmeet Expressions; and one common Infirmity I perceive, that I put off Matters with some kind of Confidence, as if I had done something new or more than ordinary in them, when upon my more mature Reviews, I find that I said not half that which the Subject did require: As E. g. in the Doctrine of the Covenants, and of Justification, but especially about the Divine Authority of the Scripture in the second part of the Saints Rest; where I have not said half that should have been said; and the Reason was, because that I had not read any of the fuller sort of Books that are written on those Subjects, nor conversed with those that knew more than myself, and so all those things were either new or great to me, which were common and small perhaps to others; and because they all came in by the way of my own Study of the naked matter, and not from Books, they were apt to affect my mind the more, and to seem greater than they were. And this Token of my Weakness accompanied those my younger Studies, that I was very apt to start up Controversies in the way of my Practical Writings, and also more desirous to acquaint the World with all that I took to be the Truth, and to assault those Books by Name which I thought did tend to deceive them, and did contain unsound and dangerous Doctrine; And the Reason of all this was, that I was then in the vigor of my youthful Apprehensions, and the new Appearance of any sacred Truth, it was more apt to affect me, and be highlyer valued, than afterward, when commonness had dulled my Delight; and I did not sufficiently discern then how much in most of our Controversies is verbal, and upon mutual Mistakes. And withal I know not how impatient Divines were of being contradicted, nor how it would stir up all their Powers to defend what they have once said, and to rise up against the Truth which is thus thrust upon them, as the mortal Enemy of their Honor: And I knew not how hardly Men's Minds are charged from their former Apprehensions be the Evidence never so plain. And I have perceived, that nothing so much hindereth the Reception of the Truth, as urging it on Men with too harsh Importunity, and falling too heavily on their Errors: For hereby you engage their Honor in the business, and they defend their Errors as themselves, and stir up all their Wit and Ability to oppose you: In controversies it is fierce Opposition which is the Bellows to kindle a resisting Zeal; when if they be neglected, and their Opinions lie a while despised, they usually cool and come again to themselves (though I know that this holdeth not when the Greediness and Increase of his Followers, doth animate a Sectary, even though he have no Opposition). Men are so loath to be drenched with the Truth, that I am no more for going that way to work; and to confess the Truth, I am lately much prone to the contrary Extream, to be too indifferent what Men hold, and to keep my Judgment to myself, and never to mention anything wherein I differ from another, or anything which I think I know more than he; or at least, if he receive it not presently to silence it, and leave him to his own Opinion: And I find this Effect is mixed according to its Causes, which are some good, and some bad: The bad Causes are 1. An Impatience of Men's weakness and mistaking frowardness and Self-conceitedness. 2. An Abatement of my sensible Esteem of Truth, through the long abode of them on my Mind: Though my Judgment value them, yet it is hard to be equally affected with old and common things, as with new and rare ones. The better Causes are 1. That I am much more sensible than ever of the necessity of living upon the Principles of Religion, which we are all agreed in, and uniting these; and how much Mischief Men that overvalue their own Opinions have done by their Controversies in the Church; how some have destroyed Charity, and some caused Schisms by them, and most have hindered Godliness in themselves and others, and used them to divert Men from the serious prosecuting of a holy Life; and as Sir Francis Bacon saith, (in his Essay of Peace ) that it's one great Benefit of Church-Peace and Concord, that writing Controversies is turned into Books of practical Devotion for increase of Piety and Virtue. 2. And I find that it's much more for most Men's Good and Edification, to converse with them only in that way of Godliness which all are agreed in, and not by touching upon Differences to stir up their Corruptions; and to tell them of little more of your knowledge, than what you find them willing to receive from you as mere Learners; and therefore to stay till they crave Information of you (as Musculus did with the Anabaptists; when he visited them in Prison, and conversed kindly and lovingly with them, and shown them all the Love he could, and never talked to them of their Opinions, till at last they who were wont to call him a Deceiver and false Prophet, did entreat him to instruct them, and received his Instructions). We mistake Men's Diseases when we think there needeth nothing to cure their Errors; but only to bring them the Evidence of Truth: Alas! there are many Distempers of Mind to be removed, before Men are apt to receive that Evidence. And therefore that Church is happy where Order is kept up, and the Abilities of the Ministers command a reverend Submission from the Hearers; and where all are in Christ's School in the distinct Ranks of Teachers and Learners: For in a learning way Men are ready to receive the Truth, but in a Disputing way they come armed against it with Prejudice and Animosity.

3. And I must say farther, that what I last mentioned on the by, is one of the notablest Changes of my Mind: In my youth I was quickly past my Fundamentals, and was running up into a multitude of Controversies, and greatly delighted with metaphisical and scholastick Writings (though I must needs say, my Preaching was still on the necessary Points): But the elder I grew the smaller stress I laid upon these Controversies and Curiosities (though still my intellect abho • reth Confusion), as finding far greater Uncertainties in them, than I at first discerned, and finding less Usefulness comparatively, even where there is the greatest Certainty. And now it is the fundamental Doctrines of the Catechism, which I highliest value, and daily think of, and find most useful to myself and others: The Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, do find me now the most acceptable and plentiful matter, for all my Meditations: They are to me as my daily Bread and Drink: And as I can speak and write of them over and over again; so I had rather read or hear of them, than of any of the School Niceties, which once so much pleased me. And thus I observed it was with old Bishop Usher, and with many other Men: And I conjecture that this Effect also is mixed of good and bad, according to its Causes.

The bad Cause may perhaps be some natural Infirmity and Decay: And as Trees in the Spring shoot up into Branches, Leaves and Blossoms; But in the Autumn the Life draws down into the Root; so possibly, my Nature conscious of its Infirmity and Decay, may find itself insufficient for numerous Particles, and Assurgency to the attempting of difficult thing; and so my Mind may retire to the Root of Christian Principles; and also I have often been afraid, lest ill-rooting at first, and many Temptations afterwards, have made it more necessary for me than many others to retire to the Root, and secure my Fundamentals. But upon much Observation I am afraid lest most others are in no better a Case; and that at the first they take it for a granted thing, that Christ is the Savior of the World, and that the Soul is Immortal, and that there is a Heaven and a Hell, &c. while, they are studying abundance of a Scholastic Superstructures, and at last will find cause to study more soundly their Religion itself, as well as I have done.

The better Causes are these: 1. I value all things according to their Use and Ends; and I find in the daily Practice and Experience of my Soul, that the Knowledge of God and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the Truth of Scripture, and the Life to come, and of a Holy Life, is of more use to me, than all the most curious Speculations. 2. I know that every Man must grow (as Trees do) downwards and upwards both at once; and that the Roots increase as the Bulk and Branches do. 3. Being nearer Death and another World, I am the more regardful of those things which my Everlasting Life or Death depend on. 4. Having most to do with ignorant miserable People, I am commanded by my Charity and Reason, to treat with them of that which their Salvation lieth on; and not to dispute with them of Formalities and Neceties, when the Question is presently to be determined whether they shall dwell forever in Heaven or in Hell. In a Word, my Meditations must be most upon the matters of my Practice and my Interest: And as the Love of God, and the seeking of Everlasting Life is the Matter of my Practice and my Interest, so must it be of my Meditation. That is the best Doctrine and Study which maketh men better, and tendeth to make them happy. I abhor the Folly of those unlearned Persons, who revile or despise Learning because they know not what it is: And I take not any piece of true Learning to be useless: And yet my Soul approveth of the Resolution of Holy Paul, who determined to know nothing among his Hearers, (that is, comparatively to value and make Oftentation of no other Wisdom) but (that Knowledge of) a Cruchfied Christ; to know God in Christ is Life Eternal. As the Stock of the Tree affordeth Timber to build Houses and Cities, when the small though higher multi • arious Branches are but to make a Crowns Nest, or a Blaze: So the Knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, of Heaven and Holyness, doth build up the Soul to endless Blessedness, and affordeth it solid Peace and Comfort; when a multitude of School • Niceties serve but for vain Janglings and hurtful Diversions and Contentions: And yet I would not dissuade my Reader from the perusal of Aquinas, Scotus, Ockam, Arminiensis, Durand, or any such Writer; for much Good may be gotten from them: But I would persuade him to study and live upon the essential Doctrines of Christianity and Godliness, incomparably above them all. And that he may know that my Testimony is somewhat regardable, I presume to say, that in this I as much gainsay my natural Inclination to Subtilty and Accurateness in Knowing, as he is like to do by his, if he obey my Counsel. And I think if he lived among Infidels and Enemies of Christ, he would find that to make good the Doctrine of Faith and of Life Eternal, were not only his noblest and most useful Study; but also that which would require the height of all his Parts, and the utmost of his Diligence, to manage it skillfully to the Satisfaction of himself and others.

4. I add therefore that this is Another thing which I am changed in; that whereas in my younger Days I never was tempted to doubt of the Truth of Scripture or Christianity, but all my Doubts and Fears were exercised at home, about my own Sincerity and Interest in Christ, and this was it which I called Unbelief; since then my soreft Assaults have been on the other side, and such they were, that had I been void of internal Experience, and the Adhesion of Love, and the special help of God, and had not discerned more Reason for my Religion than I did when I was younger, I had certainly Apostatized to Infidelity (though for Atheism or Ungodliness, my Reason seeth no stronger Arguments, than may be brought to prove that there is no Earth or Air, or Sun). I am now therefore much more Apprehensive than heretofore, of the Necessity of well grounding Men in their Religion, and especially of the Witness of the indwelling Spirit: For I more sensibly perceive that the Spirit is the great Witness of Christ and Christianity to the World: And though the Folly of Fanatics tempted me long to overlook the Strength of this Testimony of the Spirit, while they placed it in a certain internal Assertion, or enthusiastick Inspiration; yet now I see that the Holy Ghost in another manner is the Witness of Christ and his Agent in the World: The Spirit in the Prophets was his first Witness; and the Spirit by Miracles was the second; and the Spirit by Renovation, Sanctification, Illumination and Consolation, assimilating the Soul to Christ and Heaven is the continued Witness to all true Believers: And if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his, Rom. 8. 9. Even as the Rational Soul in the Child is the inherent Witness or Evidence, that he is the Child of Rational Parents. And therefore ungodly Persons have a great disadvantage in their resisting Temptations to unbelief, and it is no wonder if Christ be a stumbling block to the Jews, and to the Gentiles foolishness. There is many a one that hideth his Temptations to Infidelity, because he thinketh it a shame to open them, and because it may generate doubts in others: but I doubt the imperfection of most men's care of their Salvation, and of their diligence and resolution in a holy Life, doth come from the imperfection of their belief of Christianity and the Life to come. For my part I must profess, that when my belief of things Eternal and of the Scripture is most clear and firm, all goeth accordingly in my Soul, and all Temptations to sinful Compliances, Worldliness or Flesh-pleasing, do signify worse to me, than an invitation to the Stocks or Bedlam. And no Petition seemeth more necessary to me than [ Lord increase our Faith: I Believe, help thou my unbelief. ]

5. Among Truths certain in themselves, all are not equally certain unto me; and even of the Mysteries of the Gospel, I must needs say with Mr. Richard Hooker Eccl. Polit. that whatever men may pretend, the subjective Certainty cannot go beyond the objective Evidence: for it is caused thereby as the print on the Wax is caused by that on the Seal: Therefore I do more of late than ever discern a necessity of a methodical procedure in maintaining the Doctrine of Christianity, and of beginning at Natural Verities, as presupposed fundamentally to supernatural (though God may when he please reveal all at once, and even Natural Truths by Supernatural Revelation): And it is a marvelous great help to my Faith, to find it built on so sure Foundations, and so consonant to the Law of Nature. I am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty to be greater than it is, merely because it is a dishonor to be less certain; nor will I by shame be kept from confessing those Infirmities, which those have as much as I, who hypocritically reproach me with them. My certainty that I am a Man, is before my certainty that there is a God; for Quod facit notum est magis notum: My certainty that there is a God, is greater than my certainty that he requireth love and holiness of his Creature: My certainty of this is greater than my certainty of the Life of Reward and Punishment hereafter: My certainty of that, is greater than my certainty of the endless duration of it, and of the immortality of individuate Souls: My certainty of the Deity is greater than my certainty of the Christian Faith: My certainty of the Christian Faith in its Essentials, is greater than my certainty of the Perfection and Infallibility of all the Holy Scriptures: My certainty of that is greater than my certainty of the meaning of many particular Texts, and so of the truth of many particular Doctrines, or of the Canonicalness of some certain Books. So that as you see by what Gradations my Understanding doth proceed, so also that my Certainty differeth as the Evidences differ. And they that have attained to greater Perfection, and a higher degree of Certainty than I, should pity me and produce their Evidence to help me. And they that will begin all their Certainty with that of the Truth of the Scripture, as the Principium Cognoscendi, may meet me at the same end; but they must give me leave to undertake to prove to a Heathen or Infidel, the Being of a God; and the necessity of Holiness, and the certainty of a Reward or Punishment, even while he yet denieth the Truth of Scripture, and in order to his believing it to be true.

6. In my younger years my trouble for Sin, was most about my Actual failings in Thought, Word, or Action, (except Hardness of Heart, of which more anon). But now I am much more troubled for • nward Defects, and omission or want of the Vital Duties or Graces in the Soul. My daily trouble is so much for my Ignorance of God, and weakness of Belief, and want of greater love to God, and strangeness to him, and to the Life to come, and for want of a greater willingness to die, and longing to be with God in Heaven, as that I take not some Immoralities, though very great, to be in themselves so great and odious Sins, if they could be found as separate from these. Had I all the Riches of the World, how gladly should I give them, for a fuller Knowledge, Belief, and Love of God and Everlasting Glory! These wants are the greatest burden of my Life, which oft maketh my Life itself a burden. And I cannot find any hope of reaching so high in these, while I am in the Flesh, as I once hoped before this time to have attained: which maketh me the wearier of this sinful World, which is honored with so little of the Knowledge of God.

7. Heretofore I placed much of my Religion in tenderness of heart, and grieving for sin, and penitential tears; and less of it, in the love of God, and studying his love and goodness, and in his joyful praises, than now I do. Then I was little sensible of the greatness and excellency of Love and Praise; though I coldly spake the same words in its commendations, as now I do: And now I am less troubled for want of grief and tears (though I more value humility, and refuse not needful Humiliation ): But my Conscience now looketh at Love and Delight in God, and praising him, as the top of all my Religious Duties, for which it is that I value and use the rest.

8. My Judgment is much more for frequent and serious Meditation on the heavenly Blessedness, than it was heretofore in my younger days. I then thought that a Sermon of the Attributes of God, and the Joys of Heaven • were not the most excellent; and was wont to say, Every body knoweth this, that God is great and good, and that Heaven is a blessed place; I had rather hear how I may attain it. And nothing pleased me so well as the Doctrine of Regeneration, and the Marks of Sincerity; which was because it was suitable to me in that state: but now I had rather read, hear or meditate, on God and Heaven, than on any other Subject: for I perceive that it is the Object that altereth and elevateth the Mind; which will be such as that is, which it most frequently feedeth on: And that it is not only useful to our comfort, to be much in Heaven in our believing thoughts; but that is must animate all our other Duties, and fortify us against every Temptation and Sin; and that the Love of the end is it that is the poise or spring, which setteth every Wheel a going, and must put us on to all the means: And that a Man is no more a Christian indeed than he is Heavenly.

9. I was once wont to meditate most on my own heart, and to dwell all at home, and look little higher: I was still poring either on my Sins or Wants, or examining my Sincerity; but now, though I am greatly convinced of the need of Heart-acquaintance and employment, yet I see more need of a higher work; and that I should look often upon Christ, and God, and Heaven, than upon my own Heart. At home I can find Distempers to trouble me, and some Evidences of my Peace: but it is above that I must find matter of Delight and Joy, and Love and Peace: itself. Therefore I would have one thought at home upon myself and sins, and many thought above upon the high and amiable and beatifying Objects.

10. Heretofore I knew much less than now; and yet was not half so much acquainted with my Ignorance: I had a great delight in the daily new Discoveries which I made, and of the Light which shined in upon me (like a Man that cometh into a Country where he never was before): But I little knew either how imperfectly I understood those very Points, whose discovery so much delighted me, nor how much might be said against them; nor how many things I was yet a stranger to: But now I find far greater Darkness upon all things, and perceive how very little it is that we know in comparision of that which we are ignorant of, and and have far meaner thoughts of my own Understanding, though I must needs know that it is better furnished than it was them.

11. Accordingly I had then a far higher opinion of Learned Persons and Books, than I have now; for what I wanted myself, I thought every Reverend Divine had attained, and was familiar acquainted with: And what Books I understood not by reason of the strangeness of the Terms, or Matter, I the more • admired and thought that others understood their worth. But now Experience h • th constrained me against my will to know, that Reverend Learned Men are imperfect, and know but little as well as I; especially 〈◊〉 that think themselves the wise ••• And the better I am acquainted with them, the more I perceive that we are all yet in the dark: And the 〈◊〉 I am acquainted with holy Men, that are all for Heaven, and pretend not much to Subtilties, the more I value and honor them. And when I have studied hard to understand some abs • ruse admired Book, (as De Scientia Dei, De 〈…〉 Praedeterminatione, de Libert • to Creature a, &c.) I have but attained the Knowledge of Human Imperfection, and to see that the Author 〈◊〉 but a Man as well as 〈◊〉

12. And at first I took • more upon my Author's Cr • dit, 〈◊〉 now I can do • And when an Author was highly commend • d to me by 〈◊〉 or, pleased me in some part, I was ready to entertain the whole; whereas now I take and leave in the same Author, and dissent in some things from • him that I like best, as well as from others.

13. At first I was greatly inclined to go with the highest in controversies, on one side or other; as with Dr. Twisse, and Mr. Rutherford, and Spanhemi •• de Providentia, & gratia, &c. But now I can so easily see what to say against both extremes that I am much more inclinable to reconciling Principles. And whereas then I thought that Conciliators were but ignorant men, that were willing to please all, and would pretend to reconcile the World by Principles which they did not understand themselves; I have since perceived that if the amiableness of Peace and Concord had no hand in the business, yet greater Light and stronger Judgment usually is with the Reconcilers, than with either of the contending Parties (as with Davenant, Hall, Usher, Lud. Crocius, Bergius, Strangius, Cameron, &c.) But on both accounts their Writings are most acceptable, (though I know that Moderation may be a pretext of Errors).

14. At first the Style of Authors took as much with me as the Argument, and made the Arguments seem more forcible: But now I judge not of Truth at all by any such Ornaments or Accidents, but by its naked Evidence.

15. I now see more Good and more Evil in all Men than heretofore I did: I see that Good men are not so good, as I once thought they were, but have more Imperfections: And that nearer approach and fuller trial, doth make the best appear more weak and faulty, than their Admirers at a distance think. And I find that few are so bad, as either their malicious Enemies, or censorious separating Professors do imagine. In some indeed I find that Human Nature is corrupted into a greater likeness to Devils, than I once thought any on Earth had been. But even in the wicked usually there is more for grace to make advantage of, and more to testify for God and Holiness, than I once believed there had been.

16. I less admire Gifts of Utterance and bare Profession of Religion than I once did; and have much more Charity for many, who by the want of Gi • ts, do make an obscurer Profession than they. I once thought that almost all that could pray movingly and fluently, and talk well of Religion, had been Saints. But Experience hath opened to me, what odious Crimes may consist with high Profession; and I have met with divers obscure Persons, not noted for any extraordinary Profession, or forwardness in Religion, but only to live a quiet blameless Life, whom I have after found to have long lived, as far as I could discern, a truly godly and sanctified Life; only their Prayers and Duties were by accident kept secret from other men's observation. yet he that upon this pre • ence would confound the Godly and the Ungodly, may as well go about to lay Heaven and Hell together.

17. I am not so narrow in my special Love as heretofore: Being less cens • rious, and talking more than I did for Saints, it must needs follow that I love more • s Saints than I did before. I think it not lawful to put that Man off with bare Church Communion, and such common Love which I must allow the Wicked, who professeth himself a true Christian, by such a Profession as I cannot disprove.

18. I am not too narrow in my Principles of Church Communion as once I was: I more plainly perceive the difference between the Church as Congregate or visible, and as Regenerate or Mystical: and between Sincerity and Profession; and that a Credible Profession is proof sufficient of a Man's Title to Church Admission: and that the Profession is Credible in foro Ecclesiae, which is not disproved. I am no • for narrowing the Church more than Christ himself alloweth us; nor for robbing him of any of his Flock. I am more sensible how much it is the Will of Christ th •• t every Man be the chooser or refuser of his own felicity, and that it li • th most on his own hands, whether he will have Communion with the Church or not; and that if he be an hypocrite it is himself that will bear the loss.

19. Yet am I more apprehensive than ever of the great use and need of Ecclesiastical Discipline, and what a sin it is in the Pastors of the Church, to make no distinction, but by bare Names and Sacraments, and to force all the unmeet against their own wills, to Church Communion and Sacraments (though the ignorant and erroneous may sometime be forced to hear instruction): And what a great dishonor to Christ it is, when the Church shall be as vicious as Pagan and Mahometan Assemblies, and shall differ from them only in Ceremony and Name.

20. I am much more sensible of the Evil of Schism, and of the Separating • Humour, and of gathering Parties, and making several Sects in the Church than I was heretofore. For the Effects have shown us more of the mischiefs.

21. I am much more sensible how prone many young Professors are to Spiritual Pride and Self-conceitedness, and Unruliness and Division, and so to prove the Grief of their Teachers, and Firebrands in the Church; and how much of a Minister's work lieth in preventing this, and humbling and confirming such young inexperienced Professors, and keeping them in order in their progress in Religion.

22. Yet am I more sensible of the Sin and Mischief of using Men cruelly in Matters of Religion, and of pretending Men's good, and the Order of the Church, for Acts of Inhumanity or Uncharitableness: Such know not their own Infirmity, nor yet the nature of Pastoral Government, which ought to be Paternal and by Love; nor do they know the way to win a Soul, nor to maintain the Churches Peace.

23. My Soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable World, and more drawn out in desire of their Conversion than heretofore: I was wont to look but little further than England in my Prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the World: Or if I prayed for the Conversion of the Jews, that was almost all. But now as I better understand the Case of the World, and the method of the Lord's Prayer, so there is nothing in the World that lieth so heavy upon my heart, as the thought of the miserable Nations of the Earth: It is the most astonishing part of all God's Providence to me, that he so far forsaketh almost all the World, and confineth his special Favor to so few: That so small a part of the World hath the Profession of Christianity, in comparison of Heathens, Mohammedans and other Infidels! And that among professed Christians there are so few that are saved from gross Delusions, and have but any competent Knowledge: and that among those there are so few that are seriously Religious, and truly set their hearts on Heaven. I cannot be affected so much with the Calamities of my own Relations, or the Land of my Nativity, as with the Case of the Heathen, Mahometan, and ignorant Nations of the Earth. No part of my Prayers are so deeply serious, as that for the Conversion of the Infidel and Ungodly World, that God's Name may be sanctified, and his Kingdom come, and his Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven: Nor was I ever before so sensible what a Plague the Division of Languages was which hindereth our speaking to them for their Conversion; nor what a great Sin Tyranny is, which keepeth out the Gospel from most of the Nations of the World. Could we but go among Tartarians, Turks, and Heathens, and speak their Language, I should be but little troubled for the silencing of Eighteen hundred Ministers at once in England, nor for all the rest that were cast out here, and in Scotland and Ireland: There being no Employment in the World so desirable in my Eyes, as to labor for the winning of such miserable Souls: which maketh me greatly honor Mr. John Eliot, the Apostle of the Indians in New-England, and whoever else have labored in such work.

24. Yet am I not so much inclined to pass a peremptory Sentence of Damnation upon all that never heard of Christ; having some more reason than I knew of before, to think that God's dealing with such is much unknown to us! And that the Ungodly here among us Christians are in a far worse Case than they.

25. My Censures of the Papists do much differ from what they were at first: I then thought that their Errors in the Doctrines of Faith were their most dangerous Mistakes, as in the Points of Merit, Justification by Works, Assurance of Salvation, the Nature of Faith, &c. But now I am assured that their mis-expressions, and mis-understanding us, with our mistakings of them, and inconvenient expressing our own Opinions, hath made the difference in these Points to appear much greater than they are; and that in some of them it is next to none at all. But the great and irreconcilable Differences lie, in their Church Tyranny and Usurpations, and in their great Corruptions and Abasement of God's Worship, together with their befriending of Ignorance and Vice. At first I thought that Mr. Perkins well proved that a Papist cannot go beyond a Reprobate: but now I doubt not but that God hath many sanctified Ones among them, who have received the true Doctrine of Christianity so practically, that their contradictory Errors prevail not against them, to hinder their Love of God, and their Salvation: but that their Errors are like a conquerable Dose of Poison which Nature doth overcome. And I can never believe that a Man may not be saved by that Religion, which doth but bring him to the true Love of God, and to heavenly Mind and Life: nor that God will ever cast a Soul into Hell that truly loveth him. Also at first it would disgrace any Doctrine with me, if I did but hear it called Popery and Antichristian: but I have long learned to be more impartial, and to dislike Men for bad Doctrine, rather than the Doctrines for the Men; and to know that Satan can use even the Names of Popery and Antichrist, against a Truth.

26. I am deeplier afflicted for the disagreements of Christians than I was when I was a younger Christian. Except the Case of the Infidel World, nothing is so sad and grievous to my thoughts, as the Case of the divided Churches. And therefore I am more deeply sensible of the sinfulness of those Prelates and Pastors of the Churches, who are the principal Cause of these Divisions. O how many millions of Souls are kept by them in ignorance, and ungodliness, and deluded by Faction as if it were true Religion. How is the Conversion of Infidels hindered by them! and Christ and Religion heinously dishonored! The Contentions between the Greek Church and the Roman, the Papists and the Protestants, the Lutherans and the Calvinists, have woefully hindered the Kingdom of Christ.

27. I have spent much of my Studies about Terms of Christian Concord, and have over and over considered of the several ways, which several sorts of Reconcilers have devised: I have thought of the Papists way, who think there will be no Union, but by coming over wholly to their Church: and I have found that it is neither Possible nor desirable. I have thought and thought again of the way of the moderating Papists, Cassander, Grotius, Balwin, &c. and of those that would have all reduced to the state of the Times of Gregory the First, before the Division of the Greek and Latin Churches, that the Pope might have his Primacy, and govern all the Church by the Canons of the Councils, with a Salvo to the Right of Kings and Patriarchs and Prelates; and that the Doctrines and Worship which then were received might prevail. And for my own part, if I lived in such a state of the Church, I would live peaceably, as glad of Unity, though lamenting the Corruption and Tyranny: But I am fully assured that none of these are the true desirable Terms of Unity, nor such as are ever like to procure an Universal Concord: And I am as sure that the true Means and Terms of Concord are obvious and easy to an impartial willing mind. And that these three Things alone would easily heal and unite all the Churches.

1. That all Christian Princes and Governors take all the Coercive Power about Religion into their own hands, (though if Prelates and their Courts must be used as their Officers in exercising that Coercive Power, so be it): And that they make a difference between the approved and the tolerated Churches; and that they keep the Peace between these Churches, and settle their several privileges by a Law.

2. That the Churches be accounted Tolerable, who profess all that is in the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Decalogue in Particular, and generally all that they shall find to be revealed in the Word of God, and hold Communion in Teaching, Prayer, Praises, and the two Sacraments, not obstinately preaching any Heresy contrary to the particular Articles which they profess, nor seditiously disturbing the Public Peace: And that such Heretical Preaching, and such Seditious unpeaceableness, or notorious Wickedness of Life, do forfeit their Toleration.

3. And that those that are further Orthodox in those Particulars, which Rulers think fit to impose upon their Subjects, have their public Maintenance and greater Encouragement. Yea, and this much is become neccessary, but upon supposition that Men will still be so self-conceited and uncharitable, as not to forbear their unnecessary Impositions. Otherwise there would be found but very few who are Tolerable, that are not also in their measure to be approved, maintained and encouraged. And if the Primitive Simplicity in Doctrine, Government and Worship, might serve turn, for the Terms of the Churches Union and Communion, all would be well without anymore ado; supposing that where Christian Magistrates are, they keep the Peace, and repress the Offenders, and exercise all the Coercive Government: And heretics, who will subscribe to the Christian Faith, must not be punished! because they will subscribe to no more, but because they are proved to preach or promote Heresy, contrary to the Faith which they profess.

28. I am farther than ever I was from expecting great matters of Unity, Splendor or Prosperity to the Church on Earth, or that Saints should dream of a Kingdom of this World, or slatter themselves with the Hopes of a Golden Age, or reigning over the Ungodly, (till there be a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness ). And on the contrary I am more apprehensive that Sufferings must be the Churches most ordinary Lot, and Christians indeed must be selfdenying Cross-bearers, even where there are none but formal nominal Christians to be the Cross-makers: And though ordnarily God would have Vicissitudes of Summer and Winter, Day and Night, that the Church may grow extensively in the Summer of Prosperity, and intensively and radicatedly in the Winter of Adversity; yet usually their Night is longer than their Day, and that D • y its self hath its Storms and Tempests. For the Prognostics are evident in their Causes: 1. The Church will be still Imperfect and Sinful, and will have those Diseases which need this bitter Remedy. 2. Rich Men will be the Rulers of the World; and Rich Men will be generally so far from true Godliness, that they must come to Heaven as by Human Impossibilities, as a Camel through a Needles Eye. 3. The Ungodly will ever have an Enmity against the Image of God, and he that is born of the Flesh will persecute him that was born after the Spirit, and Brotherhood will not keep a Cain from killing an Abel, who offereth a more acceptable Sacrifice than himself: And the Guilty will still hate the Light, and make a Prey to their Pride and Malice of a Conscionable Reprover. 4. The Pastors will be still troubling the Church with their Pride and Avarice and Contentions; and the worst will be seeking to be the Greatest, and they that seek it are likest to attain it. 5. He that is highest will be still imposing his Conceits upon those under him, and Lording it over God's Heritage, and with Di • trephes casting out the Brethren, and ruling them by constraint, and not as Volunteers. 6. Those that are truly judicious will still comparatively be few; and consequently the Troublers and Dividers will be the Multitude; and a judicious Peace-maker and Reconciler will be neglected, slighted, or hated by both Extreams. 7. The Tenour of the Gospel Predictions, Precepts, Promises and Threatenings, are fitted to a People in a suffering State. 8. And the Graces of God in a Believer are mostly sured to a State of Suffering. 9. Christians must imitate Christ, and suffer with him before they reign with him; and his Kingdom was not of this World. 10. The Observation of God's dealing hitherto with the Church in every Age confirmeth me: and his befooling them that have dreamed of glorious Times. It was such Dreams that transported the Munster Anabaptists, and the Followers of David George in the Low Countries, and Campanella, and the Illuminati among the Papists, and our English Anabaptists and other Fanatics here, both in the Army and the City and Country. When they think the Golden Age is come, they show their Dreams in their extravagant Actions: And as our Fifth Monarchy Men, they are presently upon some unquiet rebellious Attempt, to set up Christ in his Kingdom whether he will or not. I remember how Abraham Scultetus in Curriculo Vitae suae confesseth the common Vanity of himself and other Protestants in Germany, who seeing the Princes in England, France, Bohemia, and many other Countrys, to be all at once both Great and Wise, and Friends to Reformation, did presently expect the Golden Age: But within one year either Death, or Ruines of War or Back-slidings, had exposed all their Expectations to Scorn, and laid them lower than before.

29. I do not lay so great a Stress upon the external Modes and Forms of Worship, as many young Professors do. I have suspected myself, as perhaps the Reader may do, that this is from a cooling and declining from my former Zeal (though the truth is, I never much complied with Men of the Mind): But I find that Judgment and Charity are the Causes of it, as for as I am able to discover. I cannot be so narrow in my Principles of Church-Communion as many are; that are so much for a Liturgy, or so much against it, so much for Ceremonies or so much against them, that they can hold Communion with no Church that is not of their Mind and Way. If I were among the Greeks, the Lutherans, the Independents; yea, the Anabaptists (that own no Herisy, nor set themselves against Charity and Peace) I would hold sometimes occasional Communion with them as Christians (if they will give me leave, without forcing me to any sinful Subscription or Action): Though my most usual Communion should be with that Society, which I thought most agreeable to the Word of God, if I were free to choose. I cannot be of their Opinion that think God will not accept him that prayeth by the Common-Prayer-Book, and that such Forms are a self-invented Worship which God rejecteth: Nor yet can I be of their Mind that say the like of extemporary Prayers.

30. I am much less regardful of the Approbation of Man, and set much lighter by Contempt or Applause, than I did long ago. I am oft suspicious that this is not only from the increase of Self-denial and Humility; but partly from my being glutted and surfeited with human Applause: And all worldly things appear most vain and unsatisfactory when we have tried them most. But though I feel that this hath some hand in the Effect, yet as far as I can perceive, the Knowledge of Man's Nothingness, and God's transcendent Greatness, with whom it is that I have most to do, and the sense of the brevity of human things, and the nearness of Eternity are the principal Causes of this Effect; which some have imputed to Self-conceitedness and Morosity.

31. I am more and more pleased with a solitary Life; and though in a way of Self-denial I could submit to the most public Life, for the service of God, when he requireth it, and would not be unprofitable that I might be private; yet I must confess, it is much more pleasing to myself, to be retired from the World, and to have very little to do with Men, and to converse with God and Conscience and good Books; of which I have spoken my Heart in my Divine Life, Part III.

32. Though I was never much tempted to the Sin of Covetousness, yet my fear of dying was wont to tell me, that I was not sufficiently loosened from this World. But I find that it is comparatively very easy to me to be loose from this World, but hard to live by Faith above. To despise Earth is easy to me; but not so easy to be acquainted and conversant in Heaven. I have nothing in this World which I could not easily let go; but to get satisfying Apprehensions of the other World is the great and grievous Difficulty.

33. I am much more apprehensive than long ago, of the Odiousness and Danger of the Sin of Pride; scarce any Sin appeareth more odious to me: Having daily more Acquaintance with the lamentable Naughtiness and Frailty of Man, and of the Mischiefs of that Sin; and especially in Matters Spiritual and Ecclesiastical: I think so far as any Man is proud he is kin to the Devil, and utterly a Stranger to God and to himself: It's a Wonder that it should be a possible Sin, to Men that still carry about with them, in Soul and Body, such humbling matter of Remedy as we all do.

34. I more than ever lament the Unhappiness of the Nobility, Gentry, and great ones of the World, who live in such Temptation to Sensuality, Curiosity and wasting of their time about a multitude of little things; and whose Lives are too often the Transcript of the Sins of Sodom; Pride, fullness of Bread, and abundance of Idleness, and want of Compassion to the Poor. And I more value the Life of the poor Labouring Man; but especially of him that hath neither Poverty nor Riches.

35. I am much more sensible than heretofore, of the Breadth, and Length, and Depth of the radical, universal, odious Sin of Selfishness, and therefore have written so much against it: And of the Excellency and Necessity of Self-denial, and of a public Mind, and of loving our Neighbor as ourselves.

36. I am more and more sensible that most Controversies have more need of right Stating than of Debating; and if my Skill be increased in anything it is in that, in narrowing Controversies by Explication, and separating the real from the verbal, and proving to many Contenders, that they differ less than they think they do.

37. I am more solicitous than I have been about my Duty to God, and less solicitous about his Dealings with me; as being assured that he will do all things well; and as acknowledging the Goodness of all the Declarations of his Holyness, even in the Punishment of Man; and as knowing that there is no Rest but in the Will and Goodness of God.

38. Though my Works were never such as could be any Temptation to me to dream of obliging God by proper Merit, in commutative Justice; yet one of the most ready, constant, undoubted Evidences of my Uprightness and Interest in his Covenant, is the Consciousness of my living as devoted to him: And I the easilier believe the Pardon of my Failings through my Redeemer, while I know that I serve no other Master, and that I know no other End, or Trade, or Business; but that I am employed in his Work, and make it the Business of my Life, and live to him in the World, notwithstanding my Infirmities: And this Bent and Business of my Life, with my longing Desires after Perfection, in the Knowledge and Belief and Love of God, and in a Holy and Heavenly Mind and Life, are the two standing, constant, discernible Evidences, which most put me out of doubt of my Sincerity: And I find that constant Action and Duty is it that keepeth the first always in Sight; and constant Wants and Weaknesses, and coming short of my Desires, do make those Desires still the more troublesome, and so the more easily still perceived.

39. Though my habitual Judgment and Resolution and Scope of Life be still the same, yet I find a great Mutability as to actual Apprehensions, and Degrees of Grace; and consequently find that so mutable a thing as the Mind of Man, would never keep its self if God were not its Keeper. When I have been seriously musing upon the Reasons of Christianity, with the concurrent Evidences methodically placed in their just Advantages before my Eyes, I am so clear in my Belief of the Christian Verities, that S • tan hath little room for a Temptation. But sometimes when he hath on a sudden set some Temptation before me, when the foresaid Evidences have been out of the Way, or less upon my Thoughts, he hath by such Surprizes amazed me, and weakened my Faith in the present Act: So also as to the Love of God, and trusting in him, sometimes when the Motives are clearly apprehended, the Duty is more easy and delightful: And at other times, I am merely passive and dull, if not guilty of actual Despondency and Distrust.

40. I am much more cautelous in my Belief of History than heretofore: Not that I run into their Extream that will believe nothing because they cannot believe all things. But I am abundantly satisfied by the Experience of this Age, that there is no believing two sorts of Men, Ungodly Men and Partial Men (though an honest Heathen of no Religion may be believed, where Enmity against Religion byasseth him not; yet a deba ••• ed Christian, besides his Enmity to the Power and Practice of his own Religion, is seldom without some further Bias of Interest or Faction; especially when these concur, and a Man is both ungodly and ambitious, espousing an Intere ••• t contrary to a holy heavenly Life, and also F • ctious, embodying himself with a Sect or Party suited to his Spirit and Designs, there is no believing his Word or Oath. If you read any Man partially bitter against others as differing from him in Opinion, or as cross to his Greatness, Interest or Designs, take heed how you believe anymore, than the Historical Evidence distinct from his Word compelleth you to believe. The prodigious Lies which have been published in this Age in matters of Fact, with unblushing Confidence, even where thousands or Multitudes of Eye and Ear-Witnesses kn • w all to be false, doth call Men to take heed what History they believe, especially where Power and Violence affordeth that Privilege to the Reporter, that no Man dare answer him or detect his Fraud, or if they do their Writings are all suppressed. As long as Men have Liberty to examine and contradict one another, one may partly conjecture by comparing their Words, on which side the Truth is like to lie. But when great Men write History, or Flatteries by their Appointment, which no Man dare contradict, believe it but as you are constrained. Yet in these Cases I can freely believe History: 1. If the Person show that he is acquainted with what he faith. 2. And if he show you the Evidences of Honesty and Conscience, and the Fear of God (which may be much perceived in the Spirit of a Writing). 3. And if he appear to be Impartial and Charitable, and a Lover of Goodness and of Mankind; and not possessed with Malignity, or personal ill Will and Malice, nor carried away by Faction or personal Interest: Conscionable Men dare not lie; but Faction and Interest abate Men's Tenderness of Conscience. And a charitable impartial Heathen may speak Truth in a love to Truth, and hatred of a Lye: But ambitious Malice and false Religion, will not stick to serve themselves on any thing. It's easy to trace the Footsteps of Veracity in the Intelligence, Impartiality, and Ingenuity of a Thua •• s, a 〈◊〉 , a P •• lus V •• et. though Papists, and of Secrates and So •••• , though accused by the Factious of favoring the Novations; and many Protestants in a M • lanct ••• , a 〈◊〉 , and many more; and among Physicians in such as Crat • , Pla ••• us, &c. But it's 〈◊〉 easy to see the Footsteep • of Partiality and Faction and Design, in a Gensb •• rd, a 〈◊〉 , and a Multitude of their Companions; and to see reason of Suspicion in many more. Therefore I confess I give but halting Credit to most Histories that are written, not only against the Albigouses and 〈◊〉 , but against most of the Ancient Heretics, who have left us none of their own Writings, in which they speak for themselves, and I heartily lament that the Historical Writings of the Ancient Schismatics and 〈◊〉 (as they were called) perished, and that partiality suffered them not to sh • vi •• , that we might have had more Light in the Church-Affairs of those times, and been better able to judge between the Fathers and them. And as I am pro • e to think that few of them were so • ad as their Adversaries made them; so I am apt to think that such as the Novations, and Luci •• rians, and 〈◊〉 , &c. whom their Adversaries commend, were very good Men, and 〈◊〉 Godly than most Catholics, however mistaken in someone Point. Sure I am, that as the Lies of the Papists, of 〈◊〉 , Zwinglius, C • lvin, and 〈◊〉 , are visibly malicious and imp • dent, by the common plenary contradicting Evidence; and yet the Multitude of their Seduced ones believe them all in despite of Truth and Charity; so in this Age there have been such things written against Parties and Persons whom the Writers design to make odious; so notoriously false as you would think that the Sense of their Honor at least, should have made it impossible for such Men to write: My own Eyes have read such Words and Actions asserted with most vehement iterated unblushing Confidence, which abundance of Ear-Witnesses, even of their own Parties must needs know to have been altogether false: and therefore having myself now written this History of myself, notwithstanding my Protestation that I have not in anything willfully gone against the Truth, I expect no more Credit from the Reader, than the self-evidencing Light of the matter, with concurrent rational Advantages, from Persons, and Things, and other Witnesses, shall constrain him to; if he be a Person that is unacquainted with the Author himself, and the other Evidences of his Veracity and Credibility. And, I have purposely omitted almost all the Descriptions of any Persons that ever opposed me, or that ever I or my Brethren suffered by, because I know that the appearance of Interest and partiality might give a fair excuse to the Readers incredulity: (Although indeed the true Description of Persons is much of the very Life of History, and especially of the History of the Age which I have lived in; yet to avoid the suspicion of Partiality I have left it out). Except only when I speak of the Cromwellians and Sectaries, where I am the more free, because none suspecteth my Interest to have engaged me against them; but (with the rest of my Brethren) I have opposed them in the obedience of my Conscience, when by pleasing them I could have had almost anything that they could have given me, and when beforehand I expected that the present Governors should silence me, and deprive me of Maintenance, House and Home, as they have done by me and many hundreds more. Therefore I supposed that my Descriptions and Censures of those Persons which would have enriched and honored me, and of their Actions against that Party which hath silenced, impoverished and accused me, and which beforehand I expected should do so, are beyond the Suspicion of Envy, Self-interest or Partiality: If not, I there also am content that the Reader exercise his Liberty, and believe no worse even of these Men, than the Evidence of Fact constraineth him.

Thus much of the Alterations of my Soul, since my younger years, I thought best to give the Reader, instead of all those Experiences and Actual Motions and Affections, which I suppose him rather to have expected an account of. And having transcribed thus much of a Life which God hath read, and Conscience hath read, and must further read, I humbly lament it, and beg pardon of it, as sinful and too unequal and unprofitable: And I warn the Reader to amend that in his own, which he findeth to have been amiss in mine; confessing also that much hath been amiss which I have not here particularly mentioned, and that I have not lived according to the abundant Mercies of the Lord. But what I have recorded, hath been especially to perform my Vows, and declare his Praise to all Generations, who hath filled up my days with his invaluable Favors, and bound me to bless his Name forever: And also to prevent the defective performance of this Task, by some overvaluing Brethren, who I know intended it, and were unfitter to do it than myself. And for such Reasons as Junius, Scaltetus, Thuanus, and many others have done the like before me. The principal of which are these three: 1. As Travelers and Seamen use to do after great Adventures and Deliverances, I here by satisfy my Conscience, in praising the Blessed Author of all those undeserved Mercies which have filled up my Life. 2. Foreseeing by the Attempts of Bishop Morley, what Prelatists and Papists are like to say of me, when they have none to contradict them, and how possible it is that those that never knew me may believe them, though they have lost their hopes with all the rest, I take 〈◊〉 to be my Duty to be so faithful to that stock of Reputation which God hath entrusted me with, as to defend it at the rate of opening the Truth. Such as have made the World believe that Luther consulted with the Devil, that Calvin was a stigmatized Sodomite; that Beza turned Papist, &c. to blast their Labors, I know are very like to say anything by me, which their Interest or Malice tell them will any way advantage their Cause, to make my Writings unprofitable when I am dead. 3. That young Christians may be warned by the Mistakes and Failings of my unriper Times, to learn in patience, and live in watchfulness, and not be fierce and proudly confident in their first Conceptions; And to reverence ripe experienced Age, and to take heed of taking such for their Chief Guides as have nothing but immature and inexperienced Judgments, with fervent Affections, and free and confident Expressions; but to learn of them that have (with holiness) study, time and trial, looked about them as well on one side as the other, and attained to clearness and impartiality in their Judgments.

1. But having mentioned the Changes which I think were for the better, I must add, that as I confessed many of my Sins before, so since I have been guilty of many, which because materially they seemed small, have had the less resistance, and yet on the review to trouble more than if they had been greater done in ignorance: It can be no small sin formally which is committed against Knowledge and Conscience and Deliberation, whatever excuse it have. To have sinned while I preached and wrote against Sin, and had such abundant and great obligations from God, and made so many promises against it, doth lay me very low: not so much in fear of Hell, as in great displeasure against myself, and such self abho •• ence as would cause revenge upon myself, were it not forbidden. When God forgiveth me I cannot forgive myself; especially for any rash words or deeds, by which I have seemed injurious, and less tend • and kind than I should have been to my near and dear Relations, whose Love abundantly obliged me; when such are dead, though we never differed in point of Interest or any great Matter, every sour or cross provoking word which I gave them, maketh me almost irreconcilable to myself: and tells me how Repentance brought some of old to pray to the Dead whom they had wronged, to forgive them, in the hurry of their Passion.

2. And though I before told the Change of my Judgment against provoking Writings, I have had more will than skill since to avoid such. I must mention it by way of penitent Confession, that I am too much inclined to such words in Controversal Writings which are too keen, and apt to provoke the Person whom I write against. Sometimes I suspect that Age soureth my Spirits, and sometimes I am apt to think that it is long thinking and speaking of such things that maketh me weary, and less patient with others that understand them not: And sometimes I am ready to think that it is out of a hatred of the flattering humor which now prevaileth so in the World, that few Persons are able to bear the Truth: And I am sure that I cannot only bear myself such Language as I use to others, but that I expect it. I think all these are partly Causes; but I am sure the principal Cause is a long Custom of studying how to speak and write in the keenest manner to the common, ignorant, and ungodly People (without which keeness to them, no Sermon nor Book does much good); which hath so habituated me to it, that I am still falling into the same with others; forgetting that many Ministers and Professors of Strictness do desire the greatest sharpness to the Vulgar, and to their Adversaries, and the greatest lenity and smoothness and comfort, if not honor to themselves. And I have a strong natural inclination to speak of every Subject just as it is, and to call a Spade a Spade, & verba rebus aptare; so as that the thing spoken of may be fulliest known by the words; which methinks is part of our speaking truly. But I unfeignedly confess that it is faulty, because impru •••• 〈◊〉 that is not a good means which doth harm, because it is not fitted to 〈…〉 and because whilst the Readers think me angry, (though I feel no 〈…〉 times in myself) it is scandalous and a hindrance to the usefulness of 〈…〉 write: And especially because (though I feel no Anger, yet which is worse) I know that there is some want of Honor and Love or Tenderness to others; or else I should not be apt to use such words as open their weakness and offend them: And therefore I repent of it, and wish all over-sharp passages were expunged from my Writings, and desire forgiveness of God and Man. And yet I must say that I am oft afraid of the contrary Extream, lest when I speak against great and dangerous Errors and Sins, (though of Persons otherwise honest) I should encourage men to them, by speaking too easily of them (as Eli did to his Sons), and lest I should so favor the Person as may befriend the Sin and wrong the Church. And I must say as the New-England Synodists in their Defense against Mr. Davenport, pag. 2. Pref. [We heartily desire that as much as may be, all Expressions and Reflexions may be forborne that tend to break the Bond of Love. Indeed such is our Infirmity, that the naked discovery of the fallacy or invalidity of another's Allegations or Arguings is apt to provoke. This in Disputes is unavoidable.]

And therefore I am less for a disputing way than ever; believing that it tempteth Men to bend their Wits, to defend their Errors and oppose the Truth, and hindereth usually their information: And the Servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all Men, &c. Therefore I am most in Judgment for a Learning or a Teaching way of Converse: In all Companies, I will be glad either to hear those speak that can teach me, or to be heard of those that have need to learn.

And that which I named before on the by, is grown one of my great Diseases: I have lost much of that Zeal which I had, to propagate any Truths to others, save the mere Fundamentals. When I perceive People or Ministers (which is too common) to think they know what indeed they do not, and to dispute those things which they never thoroughly studied, or expect I should debate the Case with them, as if an hours talk would serve instead of an acute understanding and seven years study, I have no Zeal to make them of my Opinion, but an impatience of continuing Discourse with them on such Subjects, and am apt to be silent or to turn to something else: which (though there be some reason for it) I feel cometh from a want of Zeal for the Truth, and from an impatient Temper of Mind. I am ready to think that People should quickly understand all in a few words; and if they cannot, lazily to despair of them, and leave them to themselves: And I the more know that it is sinful in me, because it is partly so in other things; even about the Faults of my Servants or other Inferiors, if three or four times warning do no good on them, I am much tempted to despair of them, and turn them away and leave them to themselves.

I mention all these Distempers, that my Faults may be a warning to others to take heed, as they call on myself for Repentance and Watchfulness. O Lord, for the Merits and Sacrifice and Intercession of Christ, be merciful to me a Sinner, and forgive my known and unknown Sins.

THE LIFE OF THE REVEREND Mr. Richard Baxter.

LIB. I. PART II.

§ 1. I N the Time of the late unhappy Wars in these Kingdoms, the Controversies about Church Government, were in most Men's mouths, and made the greatest Noise, being hotly agitated by States-men and Divines, by Words and Writings: which made it necessary to me, to set myself to the most serious study of those Points: The result of which was, this confident and settled Judgment, that of the four contending Parties, (the Erastian, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Independant) each one had some Truths in peculiar, which the other overlookt, or took little notice of, and each one had their proper Mistakes which gave advantage to their Adversaries; though all of them had so much truth in common among them, as would have made these Kingdoms happy, if it had been unanimously and soberly reduced to practice, by prudent and charitable Men.

§ 2. 1. The Erastians, I thought, were thus far in the right, in asserting more fully than others the Magistrates Power in Matters of Religion; that all Coercive Power (by Mulcts or Force) is only in their hands (which is the full sense of our Oath of Supremacy); and that no such Power belongeth to the Pastors or People of the Church; and that thus (as Dr. Ludov. Molinae •• pleadeth) there should not be any Imperium in Imperio, or any Coercive Power challenged by Pope, Prelate, Presbytery, or any, but by the Magistrate alone: that the Pastoral Power is only Perswasive, or exercised on Volunteers; yet not private, such as belongeth to every Man (to persuade ) that hath a persuading Faculty • but Public and Authoritative by Divine appointment: And not only to persuade by Sermons or general Speeches, but by particular oversight of their particular Flocks! much like the Authority of Plato or Zen • in his School, or a Master in any Academy of Volunteers, or of a Physician in his Hospital, supposing these were Officers of God's Institution, who could as the ground of their perswasitant • produce his Commission or Command for what they said and did.

But though the Diocesans, and the Presbyterians of Scotland (who had Laws to enable them) opposed this Doctrine or the Party at least, yet I perceived that indeed, it was but on the ground of their Civil Advantages, as the Magistrate had impowered by them by his Laws) (which the Erastians did not contradict); except some few of the higher 〈◊〉 sort, who pleaded as the Papists, for somewhat more, which yet they could not themselves tell what to make of: But the generality of each Party indeed owned this Doctrine; and I could speak with no sober Judicious Prelatist, Presbyterian, or Independant, but confessed that no Secular, or Forcing Power, belonged to any Pastors of the Church as such; and unless the Magistrates authorized them as his Officers, they could not touch men's Bodies or Estates, but the Conscience alone (which can be of none but of Assenters).

§ 3. 2. The Episcopal Party seemed to have reason on their side in 〈◊〉 , that in the Primitive Church there were some Apostles, Evangelists, and others; who were general unfixed Officers of the Church, not tied to any particular Cha • ge; and had some Superiority (some of them •• over-fixed Bishops or Pastors! And though the extraordinary Parts of the Apostles Office ceased, with them, I saw no proof of the Cessation of any ordinary part of their Office, such as Church Government is confessed to be. All the doubt that I saw in this was, Whether the Apostles themselves were constituted Governors of other Pastors, or only over-ruled them by the Eminency of their Gifts and Privilege of Infallibility. For it seemed to me unmeet to affirm without proof, that Christ settled a Form of Government in his Church, to endure only for one Age, and changed it for a New one when that Age was ended.

And as to fixed Bishops of particular Churches that were Superiors in degree to Presbyters, though I saw nothing at all in Scripture for them, which was any whit cogent, yet I saw that the Reception of them in all the Churches was so timely (even in the days of one of the Apostles in some Churches), and so general, that I thought it a most improbable thing, that if it had been contrary to the Apostles mind, we should never read that they themselves, or any one of their Disciples that conversed with them, no nor any Christian or Heretic in the World, should once speak or write a word against it, till long after it was generally settled in the Curches. This therefore I resolved never to oppose.

§ 4. 3. And as for the Presbyterians, I found that the Office of Preaching Presbyters was allowed by all that deserve the Name of Christians; and that this Office did participate (subserviently to Christ) of the Prophetical (or Teaching) the Priestly (or worshipping) and the Governing Power; and that both Scripture, Antiquity, and the persuasive Nature of Church Government, clearly show that all Presbyters were Church Governors, as well as Church Teachers! and that to deny this was to destroy the Office, and to endeavor to destroy the Churches. And I saw in Scripture, Antiquity and Reason, that the Association of Pastors and Churches for Agreement, and their Synods in Cases of Necessity, are a plain duty: and that their ordinary stated Synods are usually very convenient.

And I saw that in England the Persons which were called Presbyterians were emiment for Learning, Sobriety and Piety: and the Pastors so called were they that went through the Work of the Ministry, in diligent serious preaching to the People, and edifying Men's Souls, and keeping up Religion in the Land.

§ 5. 4. And for the Independents, I saw that most of them were Zealous, and very many Learned, discreet and godly Men; and fit to be very serviceable in the Church. And I found in the search of Scripture and Antiquity, that in the beginning a Governed Church, and a stated worshipping Church, were all one; and not two several things: And that though there might be other by • Meetings in places like our Chapels or private Houses, for such as Age or Persecution hindered to come to the more solemn Meetings, yet Churches then were no bigger (in number of Persons) than our Parishes now (to grant the most): And that they were Societies of Christians united for Personal Communion; and not only for Communion by Meetings of Officers and Delegates in Synods, as many Churches in Association be. And I saw if once we go beyond the bounds of [Personal Communion] as the end of particular Churches, in the Definition, we may make a Church of a Nation, or of ten Nations, or what we please, which shall have none of the Nature and Ends of the Primitive particular Churches. Also I saw a commendable care of serious Holiness and Discipline in most of the Independant Churches: And I found that some Episcopal Men (as Bishop Usher himself did voluntarily profess his Judgment to me) did hold that every Bishop was independent, as to Synods, and that Synods were not proper Governors of the particular Bishops, but only for their Concord.

§ 6. 5. And for the Anabaptists themselves (though I have written and said so much against them,) as I found that most of them were Persons of Zeal in Religion, so many of them were sober godly People, and differed from others but in the Point of Infant Baptism, or at most in the Points of Predestination and Freewill and Perseverance, (as the Jesuits differ from the Dominicans, the Lutherans from the Calvinists, and the Arminians from the Contra-Remonstrants ): And I found in all Antiquity, that though Infant Baptism was held lawful by the Church • yet some with Tertullian and Nazienzen, thought it most convenient to make no haste, and the rest left the time of Baptism to every ones liberty, and forced none to be baptized: Insomuch as not only Constantint, Theud • sius, and such other as were converted at Years of Discretion, but Augustine and many such as were the Children of Christian Parents (one or both) did defer their Baptism much longer than I think they should have done. So that in the Primitive Churchi some were Baptized in Infancy, and some at ripe Age, and some a little before their Death; and none were forced, but all left free; and the only Penalty (among men) of their delay was, that so long they were without the Privileges of the Church, and were numbered but with the Catechumens, or Expectants.

§ 7. 6. As to Doctrinal Differences also (between Arminians and Anti-Arminians) I soon perceived that it was hard to find a Man that discerned the true State of the several Controversies; and that when unrevealed points (uncertain to all), were laid aside, and the Controversies about Words were justly separated from the Controversies about things; the Differences about things which remained were fewer and smaller than most of the Contenders perceived or would believe.

§ 8. 7. Yea, I found that our Doctrinal Controversies with the Papists themselves, were very much darkened, and seldom well stated; and that in the Points of Merit, Justification, Assurance of Salvation, Perseverance, Grace, Freewill, and such others, it was common to misunderstand one another, and rare to meet with any that by just Distinction and Explication, did well state the Controversies, and bring them out of the Dark.

§ 9. What I begin to write about any of these Doctrinal Differences, in my Aphorisms, Confession, Apology, &c. I will now pass by, and the manifold Censures and Encounters which I had thereupon, and the many Manuscripts of worthy Brethren animadverting upon my Aphorisms, which I was (privately) put to answer: Because it is not such Differences that now I am to speak of.

§ 10. I perceived then that every Party beforementioned, having some Truth or Good, in which it was more eminent than the rest, it was no impossible thing to separate all that from the Error and the Evil, and that among all the Truths which they held either in Common or in Controversy, there was no Contradiction: And therefore, that he that would procure the Welfare of the Church must do his best to promote all the Truth and Good which was held by every part, and to leave out all their Errors and their Evil; and not take up all that any Party had espoused as their own.

§ 11. The things which I disliked as erroneous or evil in each Party were these:

1. In the Erastians I disliked, 1. That they made too light of the Power of the Ministry and Church, and of Excommunication; and did not distinguish sufficiently of a persuasive Power which is but private, and is founded only in the Reason of the Speaker, and a persuasive Power which is public in an Officer of Christ (which Cameron well calleth Doctoral), and is founded conjunctly in his Authority (by God's Commission ) and his Arguments. 2. That they made the Articles of [the Holy Catholic Church, and the Communion of Saints] too insignificant, by making Church Communion more common to the impenitent than Christ would have it; and so dishonored Christ by dishonoring his Church, and making it too like to the Heathen World, and breaking down the Hedge of Spiritual Discipline, and laying it almost in common with the Wilderness. 3. That they misunderstood and injured their Brethren, supposing and affirming them to claim as from God a coercive Power over the Bodies or Purses of Men, and so setting up Imperium in Imperio; whereas all temperate Christians (at least except Papists) confess that the Church hath no Power of Force, but only to manage God's Word unto Men's Conscience ••

§ 12. In the Diocesan Party I utterly distiked

1. Their Extirpation of the true Discipline of Christ, as we conceive, by consequence, though not intentionally; not only as they omitted it, and corrupted it; but as their Principles and Church State had made it unpracticable and impossible, while one Bishop with his Consitory, had the sole Government of a thousand or many hundred Churches, even over many thousands whose Faces they were never like to see; not setting up any Par • chia Government under them: But just as if the Archbishops • (or rather the Patriarchs.) in C • nstanti •• 's days, should have deposed all the Bishops in the Empire, and have taken all their Charges upon themselves.

2. That hereby they altered the Species of Churches, and either would de • all particular Churches, and have none but associated Diocesan Churches, (who hold the Communion by Delegates and not personally); or else they would turn all the particular Parochial Churches into Christian Oratories and Schools, while they gave their Pastors but a Teaching and Worshiping Power; but not a Governing.

3. That hereby they altered the ancient Species of Presbyters, to whose Office the Spiritual Government of their proper Folks as truly belonged, as the Power of preaching and worshipping God did.

4. That they extinguished the ancient Species of Bishops, which was in the times of Ignatius, when every Church had one Altar and one Bishop; and there were none but Itinerants or Archbishops that had many Churches.

5. That they set up Courts that were more Secular than Spiritual, in the manner of other Secular Courts; and that the Government of the Church by Excommunication, Suspensions, Absolutions, &c. was exercised by a Chancellor, who was a civil Lawyer and a Lay-man even against Ministers themselves, unless for a blind, some Priest did formally pronounce the Sentence.

6. That the great Church Business of these Bishops and Courts, was to vex honest Christians that durst not worship God by such Ceremonies as their Consciences thought unlawful, and to silence able godly Preachers that durst not subscribe and swear Obedience to them, and use everyone of their Forms and Ceremonies, and profess the Lawfulness of all this; and that by gratifying the multitude of the ungodly, and espousing a Cause so perniceous to the Church, which multitudes of sober Christians would dislike, they had engaged themselves into a way of Enmity and Violence against a very considerable Number of as able Ministers, and holy Christians as any were in the Land or in the known World.

7. And hereby it came to pass that the Multitude of the Ignorant and ungodly People were become the zealous Pleaders for the Prelacie, and made it the Brestwork to exercise their Enmity against the serious Practice of Religion.

8. And that ignorant drunken Readers (unfit to live in Christian Communion) were the only Pastors (under the Prelates) of abundance of the Churches in the Land.

9. And that their zeal for Formality and Ceremonies, and their Enmity to the most serious way of Preaching, Praying, yea, and Living, did greatly tend to the suppressing of Godliness, and the increase of Ignorance and Profaneness in the People.

10. And lastly, That they were set upon a way of uncharitable Censuring, Reproaching, Cruelty and Force, for the carrying on of so ill a Cause; wherein their carnal Interest did evidently manage a War against the Interest of Christ and Godliness and the Souls of Men.

§ 13. 3. In the Presbyterian way I disliked

1. Their Order of Lay-Elders who had no Ordination, nor Power to Preach, nor to administer Sacraments: For though I grant that Lay-Elders, or the Chief of the People, were oft employed to express the Peoples Consent, and preserve their Liberties, yet these were no Church-Officers at all, nor had any Charge of private Oversight of the Flocks: And though I grant that one Church had oft more Elders, than did use to preach, and that many were most employed in private Oversight, yet that was but a prudent dividing of their Work, according to the Gifts and parts of each, and not that any Elders wanted Power of Office to preach or Administer Sacraments when there was Cause.

2. And I disliked the Course of some of the more rigid of them, that drew too near the way of Prelacie, by grasping at a kind of secular Power; not using it themselves, but binding the Magistrates to confiscate or imprison Men, merely because they were excommunicate; and so corrupting the true Discipline of the Church, and turning the Communion of Saints, into the Communion of the Multitude that must keep in the Church against their Wills, for fear of being undone in the World. When as a Man whose Conscience cannot feel a just Excommunication, unless it be backed with Confiscation or Imprisonment, is no fitter to be a Member of a Christian Church in the Communion of Saints, than a Corps is to be a Member of a Corporation. It's true they claim not this Power as Iure Divino (though some say that the Magistrate is bound to execute these Penalties on Men merely as excommunicate;) nor no more do the Prelates, when yet the Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo, is the Life of all their Censures): But both Parties too much debase the Magistrate, by making him their mere Executioner; when as he is the Judge where ever he is the Executioner, and is to try each Cause at his own Barr before he be obliged to punish any; and they corrupt the Discipline of Christ by mixing it with secular Force; and they reproach the Keys or Ministerial Power, as if it were a Leaden Sword, and not worth a Straw unless the Magistrates Sword enforce it. (And what then did the Primitive Church for Three hundred Years?) And, worst of all, they corrupt the Church by forcing in the Rabble of the unfit and unwiling; and thereby tempt many Godly Christians to Schisms and dangerous Separations. In all this I deny not, but that the Magistrate must restrain all sorts of Vice: But not as a Hangman only, that executeth the Judgment of another; nor eo Nomine to punish a Man because he is Excommunicate (that is most heavily punished already by others): Till Magistrates keep the Sword themselves, and learn to deny it to every angry Clergyman that would do his own Work by it, and leave them to their own Weapons, the Word and Spiritual Keys; & valeant quantum valere possunt, the Church shall never have Unity and Peace; hucusque probatum est.

3. And I disliked some of the Presbyterians, that they were not tender enough to dissenting Brethren; but too much against Liberty as others were too much for it; and thought by Votes and Number to do that which Love and Reason should have done.

4. And when the Independents said [A Worshiping Church and a Governed Church is and must be all one:] And the Presbyterians said [They may be all one though it be not necessary]; yet in their Practice they would have so settled it, that they should nowhere be all one, but ten or twelve worshipping Churches should have made one Governed Church; which prepared the way to the Diocesan Frame; though I confess it is incomparably better (because ten or Twelve Churches is not so many as a thousand or many hundred; and because the Pastor of every Church had the Government of his own Flock, in Conjunction with the Presbytery or Synod, though not alone).

§ 14. 4 And in the Independent way I disliked many things: As

1. That they made too light of Ordination.

2. That they also had their Office of Lay-Eldership.

3. That they were commonly Stricter about the Qualification of Church Members, than Scripture, Reason, or the Practice of the Universal Church would allow; not taking a Man's bare Profession as Credible, as a sufficient Evidence of his Title to Church Communion, unless either by a holy Life, or the Particular Narration of the Passages of the Work of Grace, he satisfied the Pastors (yea, and all the Church) that he was truly Holy; whereas every Man's Profession is the valid Evidence of the thing professed in his Heart, unless it be disproved by him that questioneth it, by proving him guilty of Heresies or Impiety, or Sins inconsistent with it. And if once you go beyond the Evidence of [a serious sober Confession] as a credible and sufficient sign of Title, you will never know where to rest; but the Churches Opinion will be both Rule and Judge, and Men will be let in or kept out, according to the various Latitude of Opinions or Charity in the several Officers or Churches: and he will be passable in one Church who in another is intolerable; and so the Churches will be heterogeneous and confused. And there is in all this a little (if not more than a little) spiritual Pride of the Weaker sort of Professors, affecting to be visibly set at a greater Distance from the colder Professors of Chistianity, than God would have them, that so they may be more observable, and conspicuous for their Holyness in the World: And there is too much uncharitableness in it, when God hath given sincere Professors the Kernel of his Mercies, even Grace and Glory, and yet they will grudge to cold Hypocritical Professors, so small a thing as the outward Shell, and visible Communion and external Ordinances; Yea, though such are kept in the Church for the Sakes and Service of the Sincere.

4. And I disliked also the lamentable tendency of this their way to Divisions and Sub-divisions, and the nourishing of Heresies and Sects.

5. But above all I disliked, that most of them made the People by majority of Votes to be Church-Governors, in Excommunications, Absolutions, &c. which Christ hath made an Act of Office, and so they governed their Governors and themselves.

6. Also that they too much exploded Synods, refusing them as stated, and admitting them but upon some extraordinary Occasions.

7. Also their over-rigidness against the Admission of Christians of other Churches to their Communion.

8. And their making a Minister to be as no Minister to any but his own Flock, and to act to others but as a private Man; with divers others such Irregularities, and dividing Opinions: Many of which the moderation of the New England Synod hath of late corrected and disowned; and so done very much to heal these Breaches.

§ 15. 5 And for the Anabaptists I knew that they injuriously excluded the Infants of the Faithful from solemn entrance into the Covenant and Church of God, and as sinfully made their Opinion a Ground of their Separations from the Churches and Communion of their Brethren; and that among them grew up the Weeds of many Errors and Divisions, Sub-divisions, Reproach of Ministers, Faction and Pride, and scandalous Practices were fomented in their way.

§ 16. The case standing thus with all these Parties, I thought it my Duty, 1. To labor to bring them all to a concordant Practice of so much as they all agreed in. 2. To set all that together which was True and Good among them all, and to promote that so far as I was able, and to reject the rest. 3. And especially in order to these, to labor the reviving of Christian Charity, which Faction and Disputes had lamentably extinguished. But how to accomplish this, was beyond the Prospect of my Hope.

§ 17. Besides the Hinderances which are contained in Men's Principles, I found three others which were exceeding Powerful: One is in Men's Company and another in their seeming Interests, and the chiefest of all in the Disposition and Quality of their Minds.

§ 18. 1. Some that were most conversant with sober, peaceable, experienced Men, and were under the Care of peaceable Ministers, I found very much inclined to Charity and Peace. But multitudes of them conversed most with ignorant, proud, inexperienced, Passionate, Uncharitable Persons; who made it a part of their Zeal and Ingenuity to break a Jest in Reproach and Scorn of them that differed from them; and who were ordinarily Backbiters, and bold unrighteous Censurers of others, before they well understood them, or ever heard them give a Reason of their Judgments or Practices, or speak for themselves. And the hearing and conversing with such Persons as these doth powerfully dispose Men to the same Disease, and to sin impenitently after their Example. Especially when Men are incorporated into a Sect or uncharitable Party, and have captivated themselves to a human Servitude in Religion, and given up themselves to the Will of Men, the Stream will bear down the plainest Evidence, and carry them to the foulest Errors.

§ 19. 2. And as it is carnal Interest that ruleth the carnal World, so I found that 1. Among Selfish Men, there were as many Interests and Ends, as Persons; and every one had an Interest of his own which governed him, and set him at a very great Enmity to the most necessary means of Peace. 2. And that ever Man that had once given up himself to a Party, and drowned himself in a Faction, did make the Interest of that Faction or Party to be his own: And the Interest of Christianity, Catholicism and Charity, is contrary to the Interest of Sects, as such. And it is the Nature of a Sectary, that he preferreth the Interest of his Opinion, Sect or Party, before the Interest of Christianity, Catholicism and Charity, and will sacrifice the latter to the Service of the former.

§ 20. 3. But the Grand Impediment I found in the temper of Men's Minds; and there I perceived a manifold difference. Among all these Parties I found that some were naturally of mild and calm and gentle Dispositions, and some of sower, froward, passionate, peevish, or furious Natures: Some were young and raw and inexperienced, and those were like a young Fruit, four and harsh; addicted to pride of their own Opinions, to Self-conceitedness, Turbulency, Censoriousness and Temerity, and to engage themselves for a Cause and Party before they understood the matter: and were led about by those Teachers and Books that had once won their highest Esteem; judging of Sermons and Persons by their Fervency, more than by the soundness of the Matter and the Cause. And some I found on the other side, to be ancient and experienced Christians that had tried the Spirits, and seen what was of God, and what of Man, and noted the Events of both in the World; and these were like ripe Fruit, Mellow and sweet, first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of Mercy and good Fruits, without Partiality, without Hypocrisy, who being Makers of Peace, did sow the Fruits of Righteousness in peace, James 3. 17, 18. I began by experience to understand the meaning of those words of St. Paul, 1 Tim 3. 6 [Not a Novice, lest being lifted up with pride, be fall into the condemnation of the Devil.] Novices, that is, young, raw, inexperienced Christians, are much apter to be proud, and censorious, and factious, than old experienced, judicious Christians.

§ 21. But the Difference between the Godly and the Ungodly, the Spiritual and the Carnal worshippers of God, was here the most considerable of all. An humble, holy, upright Soul is sensible of the interest of Christ and Souls; and a gracious Person is ever a charitable Person, and loveth his Neighbor as himself; and therefore judgeth of him, as he would be judged of himself, and speaketh of him as he would be spoken of himself, and useth him as he would be used himself: And it is as much against his charitable inclination to disagree or separate from his Brethren, much more to prosecute them or cast them out, as it is against the nature of the body to dismember itself, by cutting off any of the parts. And it is easy to bring such Persons to Agreement, at least to live in Charitable Communion. But on the other side the Carnal, Selfish and Unsanctified, (of what Party or Opinion soever) have a Nature that is quite against holy Concord and Peace. They want that love which is the natural Balsom for the Churches wounds: They are everyone Selfish, and ruled by Self-Interest, and have as many Ends and Centres of their Desires and Actions, as they are individual Men. They are easily deceived and led into Error, especially in Practicals, and against Spiritual Truths, for want of Divine Illumination, and Experience of the Things of God, and a Nature suitable thereto. Their Designs are Carnal, Ambitious, Covetous, as Worldly Felicity is their Idol and their End: God is not taken for their highest Governor, his Laws must give place to the Desires of their Flesh: Their very Religion is but Pride and Worldliness, or subject to it. They have a secret Enmity against a holy, spiritual Life, and therefore against the People that are holy: They love not them that are serious in their own Religion, and that go beyond their dead Formality: This Enmity, provoked by Self-interest or Reproof, doth easily make them Persecutors of the Godly, if they have but power. And their carnal worldly hearts incline them to the carnal worldly side in any Controversies about Religion, and to corrupt it, and make it a carnal thing. These Hypocrites in the Church do betray its Purity and Peace, and • ell Christ's Interest and the Gospel for as small a price as Judas sold his Lord for. And though in a time, when God's Providence setteth his own Cause on the higher ground, and giveth it the advantage of holy Governors, these Men may possibly be serviceable to its welfare, as finding it to serve their carnal Ends; yet ordinarily they will • ell the Peace of the Church for Preferment; and are either imposing persecuting Dividers, or discontented humorous Dividers; and hardly brought to the necessary terms of a just and holy and durable Peace, (of whom I have more largely written in my Book called Catholic Unity). These, and many more Impediments do rise up against all conciliatory endeavors.

§ 22. But I found not all these alike in all the disagreeing Parties, though some of both Sorts in every Party. The Erastian Party is most composed of Lawyers and other Secular Persons, who better understand the Nature of Civil Covernment, than the Nature, Form and Ends of the Church, and of those Offices appointed by Christ for Men's Spiritual Edification and Salvation. The Diocesan Party (with us) consisted of some grave, learned, godly Bishops, and some sober godly People of their mind; and withal of almost all the carnal Politicians, Temporizers, Profane, and Haters of Godliness in the Land; and all the Rabble of the ignorant, ungodly Vulgar: Whether this came to pafs from anything in the Nature of their Diocesan Government, or from their accommodating the ungodly Sort by the formal way of their Public Worship; or from their heading and pleasing them by running down the stricter sort of People whom they hated; or all these together; and also because the worst and most do always fall in with the Party that is uppermost, I leave to the Judgment of the considerate Reader. The Presbyterian Party consisted of grave, orthodox, godly Ministers, together with the hopefullest of the Students and young Ministers, and the soberest, godly, ancient Christians, who were equally averse to Persecution and to Schism; and of those young ones who were educated and ruled by these: As also in those places where they most prevailed, of the soberest sort of the well-meaning Vulgar, who liked a godly Life, though they had no great knowledge of it: And this Party was most desirous of Peace. The Independant Party had many very godly Ministers and People, but with them many young injudicious Persons, inclined much to Novelties and Separations, and abounding more in Zeal than Knowledge; usually doing more for Subdivisions, than the few sober Persons among them could do for unity and Peace; too much mistaking the Terms of Church Communion, and the difference between the Regenerate (invisible) and the Congregate (or visible) Church. The Anabaptists Party consisted of some (but fewer) sober, peaceable Persons, and orthodox in other Points; but withal, of abundance of young transported Zealots, and a medley of Opinionists, who all hasted directly to Enthusiasm and Subdivisions, and by the Temptation of Prosperity and Success in Arms, and the Policy of some Commanders, were led into Rebellions, and hot Endeavors against the Ministry, and other Ioandalous Crimes; and brought forth the horrid Sects of Ranters, Seekers, and Quakers in the Land.

§ 23. But the greatest Advantage which I found for Concord and Pacification, was among a great number of Ministers and People who had addicted themselves to no Sect or Party at all; though the Vulgar called them by the Name of Presbyterians: And the truth is, as far as I could discover, this was the Case of the greatest number of the godly Ministers and People throughout England. For though Presbytery generally took in Scotland, yet it was but a stranger here: And it found some Ministers that lived in conformity to the Bishops, Liturgies and Ceremonies (however they wisht for Reformation); and the most (that quickly after were ordained) were but young Students in the Universities, at the time of the change of Church Government, and had never well studied the Point on either side: And though most of the Ministers (then) in England saw nothing in the Presbyterian way of practice, which they could not cheerfully concur in, yet it was but few that had resolved on their Principles: And when I came to try it, I found that most (that ever I could meet with) were against the Ius Divinum of Lay Elders, and for the moderate Primitive Episcopacy, and for a narrow Congregational or Parochial Extent of ordinary Churches, and for an accommodation of all Parties, in order to Concord, as well as myself. I am sure as soon as I proposed it to them, I found most inclined to this way, and therefore I suppose it was their Judgment before: Yea, multitudes whom I had no converse with, I understood to be of this mind; so that this moderate Number, (I am loath to call them a Party, because they were for Catholicism against Parties), being no way pre-engaged, made the Work of Concord much more hopeful than else it would have been, or than I thought it to be when I first attempted it.

§ 24. Things being in this Case, I stood still some years, as a looker on, and contented myself to wish and pray for Peace, and only drop now and then a word for it in my practical Writings; which hath since been none of my smallest troubles. The Reasons were, 1. Because I was taken up in Practicals, and in such Controversies as tended to Doctrinal Agreement. 2. Because I looked when some abler and more eminent Divines attempted it. 3. But the chief Reason was, Despair: I was so cons • lous of my meanness and in considerableness in the Church, that I verily thought, but very few will regard what I said. But when I once attempted it, God convinced me of this Error, and shown me how little Instruments signify, when he will work: and that his Ministers and People were more humble to hear the meanest of their Brethren, than I before believed. At last the workings of my earnest Desire, and the apprehension of my Duty, to do my best, and leave the Success to God, engaged me as followeth.

§ 25. I first began in Conference and Writing to Reverend Mr. Anthony Burgess, and some others, to put the main Question, Whether all Church Government be not, as Cameron holdeth, only Perswasive, not by private, but public or authorized Doctoral Perswasion, and so can work on none but the Conscientious or Assenters? And whether the usurpation of a strictly Legislative and Judicial Power (save only to judge what we are to execute), or a power of binding Dissenters, even Clave errante, especially binding Magistrates to execute by Corporal Penalties and Mulcts, and other Punishments, Eo nomine, because by Excommunication the Church hath punished them, I say, whether this be not a robbing the Magistrate of his Power, and making the Exercise of the Keys, to be too like a Coercive Secular Judgment, and so the Ground of all the Quarrels in the Church? For I saw plainly that the Papists, and those Prelates and Presbyterians who are for such an unexamined Judicial Power, do but strive for that which belongeth to none of them all. Upon the raising of these doubts I was suspected to be an Erastian, and had no other Answer, or Satisfaction: But the study of the Point somewhat cleared my own Judgment.

§ 26. Next this I wrote to Reverend and Judicious Mr. Richard Vines, about an attempt for Concord with all, but especially the Episcopal Party: And also about Lay-Elders; and his Judgment fully concurred with me, and (besides others) he wrote to me the following Letter.

§ 27. Something also I wrote to Reverend and Learned Mr. Th. Gataker, whose Judgment I had seen before in his own Writings: And having the encouragement of such Consent, I motioned the Business to some London Ministers to have it set on foot among themselves, because if it came from them, it would be much more taking than from us: But they thought it unfit to be managed there, for several Reasons, and so we must try it, or only sit still and wish well as we had done.

§ 28. Next this, the state of my own Congregation, and the necessity of my Duty, constrained me to make some Attempt. For I must administer the Sacraments to the Church, and the ordinary way of Examining every Man before they come, I was not able to prove necessary, and the People were averse to it: So that I was forced to think of the matter more seriously; and having determined of that way which was, I thought, most agreeable to the Word of God, I thought, if all the Ministers did accord together in one way, the People would much more easily submit, than to the way of any Minister that was singular. To attempt their Consent I had two very great Encouragements: The one was an honest, humble, tractable People at home, engaged in no Party, Prelatical, Presbyterian, or Independant; but loving Godliness and Peace, and hating Schism as that which they perceived to tend to the ruin of Religion. The other was a Company of honest, godly, serious, humble Ministers in the Country where I lived, who were not one of them (that Associated) Presbyterian or Independant, and not past four or five of them Episcopal; but dis-engaged faithful Men. At a Lecture at Worcester I first procured a Meeting, and told them of the Design, which they all approved: They imposed it upon me, to draw up a Form of Agreement. The Matter of it was to consist [So much of the Church Order and Discipline, as the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Independant are agreed in, as belonging to the Pastors of each particular Church]. The Reasons of this were, 1. Because we all believed that the practice of so much as all are agreed in, would do very much to the Order and Reformation of the Churches; and that the controverted Parts are those of least necessity or weight. 2. Because we would not necessitate any Party to refuse our Association, by putting in a word which he disowneth: for we intended not to dispute one another into nearer Agreement in Opinions, but first to agree in the practice of all that which was owned by us all.

According to their desire I drew up some Articles for our Consent which might engage us to the most effectual practice of so much Discipline as might reduce the Churches to order, and satisfy Ministers in administering the Sacraments, and stop the more religious People from Separation, to which the unre • ormedness of the Churches through want of Discipline inclined them, and yet might not at all contradict the Judgments of any of the three Parties: And I brought in the Reasons of the several Points: which after sufficient Deliberation and Examination (with the alteration of some few words) were consented to by all the Ministers that were present; and after several Meetings we subscribed them, and so associated for our mutual help and concord in our Work. The Ministers that thus associated were for Number, Parts and Piety, the most considerable part of all that County, and some out of some neighbouring Counties that were near us. There was not, that I know of, one through Presbyterian among them, because there was but one such that I knew of in all the County, and he lived somewhat remote: Nor did any Independant subscribe, save one; for there were, (that I knew of) but five or six in the County, and two of the weightiest of them approved it in words, and the rest withdrew from our Debates, and gave us no reason against anything proposed. Those that did not come near us, nor concur with us, were all the weaker sort of Ministers, whose Sufficiency or Conversation was questioned by others, and knew they were of little esteem among them, and were neither able or willing to exercise any Discipline on their Flocks: As also some few of better parts of the Episcopal way, who never came near us, and knew not of our Proposals, or resolved to do nothing, till they had Episcopacy restored; or such whose Judgments esteemed such Discipline of no great necessity: And one or two very worthy Ministers, who approved of our Agreement, subscribed it not, because they had a People so very Refractory, that they knew they were not able to bring them to submit to it.

Having all agreed in this Association, we proposed publicly to our People so much as required their Consent and Practice, and gave every Family a Copy in Print, and a sufficient time to consider and understand it, and then put it in Execution; and I published it with the Reasons of it, and an Explication of what seemed doubtful in it, in a Book which I called [Christian Concord] which pleased me, and displeased others.

§ 29. There were at that time, two sorts of Episcopal Men, who differed from each other, more than the more moderate sort differed from the Presbyterians. The one was the old common moderate sort, who were commonly in Doctrine Calvinists, and took Episcopacy to be necessary ad been esse Ministerii & Ecclesiae, but not ad esse; and took all those of the Reformed that had not Bishops, for true Churches and Ministers, wanting only that which they thought would make them more complete. The other sort followed Dr. H. Hammond, and (for ought we knew) were very new, and very few: Their Judgment was (as he afferteth in Annot. in Act. 11. & in Desertat. ) that all the Texts of Scripture which speak of Presbyters, do mean Bishops, and that the Office of Subject-Presbyters was not in the Church in Scripture Times, (but before Ignatius wrote it was) but that the Apostles planted in every Church only a Bishop with Deacons, but with this intent (asserted but never proved) that in time, when the Christians multiplied, these Bishops (that had then but one Church a piece) should ordain Subject-Presbyters under them, and be the Pastors of many Churches: And they held that Ordination without Bishops was invalid, and a Ministry so ordained was null, and the Reformed Churches that had no Bishops, nor Presbyters ordained by Bishops, were no true Churches, though the Church of Rome be a true Church, as having Bishops: These Men in Doctrine were such as are called Arminians: And though the other sort were more numerous and elder, and some of them said that Dr. H. Hammond had given away their Cause (because hereby he confesseth that de facto, the Churches were but Congregational or Parochial, and that Every Church had a Bishop, and no Subject Presbyters were ordained by the Apostles, or in Scripture time, which is almost all that the Presbyterians desire) yet Dr. H. Hammond and the few that at first followed him, by their Parts and Interest in the Nobility and Gentry, did carry it at last against the other Party. Now in my Christian Concord, I had confessed that it was only the moderate ancient Episcopal Party which I hoped for Agreement with; it being impossible for the Presbyterian and Independant Party to associate with them that take them and their Churches, and all the reformed Ministers and Churches that have not Episcopal Ordination, for null: And knowing that this Opinion greatly tended to the Division of the Christian Churches, and gratifying the Papists, and offending the Protestants, I spake freely against it, which alienated that party from me.

Having settled our Associations Dr. Warmerstry (after Dean of Worcester ) and Dr. Thomas Good (after Prebend of Hereford ) were willing to have a Conference with us, in order to bring in the Episcopal Party in Shropshire (where they then lived) to our Association: Accordingly we met with them at Cleobury in Shropshire; and our Articles were read over by Dr. Warmerstry, and examined one by one, and in the conclusion they professed their very good liking of our Design, and that they purposed to join with us, but they thought it not meet at that present, being but two, to subscribe their full Assent lest it should seem over hasty to their Brethren, and should hinder the Association, which they Desired to promote: But yet at present they subscribed as followeth:

(This is that Dr. Warmestry, who, when I was silenced by Bishop Morley, and he made Dean of Worcester, came purposely to my Flock, to preach those vehement tedious Invectives of which more hereafter.)

31. In our Association we agreed upon a Monthly Meeting at certain Market-Towns for Conference about such Cases of Discipline as required Consultation and Consent: Accordingly at Evesham and Kidderminster they were constantly kept up: In the Town where I lived we had once a Month a Meeting of Three Justices of the Peace (who lived with us) and three or four Ministers (for so many we were in the Parish, myself and Assistants) and three or four Deacons, and twenty of the ancient and godly Men of the Congregation, who pretended to no Office, as Lay-Elders, but only met as the Trustees of the whole Church, to be present and secure their Liberties; and do that which any of the Church might do; and they were chosen once a year hereunto (as Grotius de Imperio sum 〈◊〉 adviseth); because all the People could not have leisure to meet so oft, to debate things which required their Consent: At this meeting we admonished those that remained impenitent in any scandalous Sin, after more private Admonition before two or three; and we did with all possible tenderness persuade them to repentance, and labor to convince them of their Sin and danger; and pray with them if they consented: And if they could not be prevailed with to repent, we required them to meet before all the Ministers at the other monthly Meeting, which was always the next Day after this parochial Meeting. There we renewed our Admonitions and Exhortations, and some Ministers of other Parishes labored to set it home, that the Offender might not think it was only the Opinion of the Pastor of the Place, and that he did it out of ill Will or Partiality. If he yielded penitently to confess his Sin and promise Amendment (more or less publicly according to the Nature of the Scandal) we then joined in Prayer for his true Repentance and Forgiveness, and exhorted him farther to his Duty for the future: But if he still continued obstinately impenitent, by the Consent of all, he was by the Pastor of the Place to be publicly admonished and prayed for by that Church, usually three several days together; and if still he remained Impenitent, the Church was required to avoid him, as a Person unfit for their Communion; as is more fully opened in the Articles of our Agreement.

§ 32. This monthly Meeting of the Ministers proved of exceeding great Benefit and comfort to us; where when we had dined together, we spent an Hour or two in Disputation on some Question which was chosen the Week before; and when the Respondent and Opponent had done their Part, they were pleased to make it my Work to determine: And after that, if we had any Church-business (as aforesaid) we consulted of it. And many Ministers met with us, that were not of our Association, for the Benefit of these Disputations. I must confess this was the comfortablest time of all my Life, through the great delight I had in the Company of that Society of honest, sincere, laborious, humble Ministers of Christ: Every Week on the Lecture Day I had the pleasant Company of many of them at my House, and every Month at our appointed Meeing I had the Company of more; I so well knew their Self-denial, Impartiality, Peaceableness, and exemplary Lives, together with their Skill and faithful Diligence for the Good of Souls (however almost all of them have been since silenced and cast out) that its pleasant to me to remeber the Converse I had with them; so aimable are sincere and upright Men, whose singleness of Heart doth imitate the State of the primitive Believers, when proud, self-seeking reserved Hypocrites, do turn their best Endowments into a Reproach.

§ 33. When Dr. Warmestry and Dr. Good had subscribed as above, a while after Dr. Warmestry consulted with his London Brethren: and he received a Paper of Animadversions (not against the Articles of our Agreement, but) against my Explication of them, and my Passages which oppose those Episcopal Divines who deny the Ministry and Churches which have not Prelatical Ordination: These Animadversions he sent to me with a Letter, which signified his desire of Peace in general, but that he must not strike a League with Faction, &c. There was no Name to this Paper, but long time after I learnt that it was Mr. Peter Gunning 's, afterwards Bishop of Eli. I presently wrote an Answer to it, and offered the Doctor to send it him, if he would tell me the Author. Because it is too long to be inserted here, I have put the Paper and Answer together in the End, where you may read them.

After this I received from Sir Ralph Clare these ensuing Papers, as from some Courtiers (which are of the same Strain with Dr. Gunning 's); which with my brief Answer I adjoin.