An Idea of the Reformation in England and History of Non-Conformity

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

THIS Treatise I received by a Trader from New-England from an unknown hand (a Learned Nonconformist there, as I guess him to be.) I had not time to have the Judgment of some judicious Divine here (for a number of them was desired to be sent this Season into those parts) therefore I have adventured to print it on my own Judgment; and though I will not presume to be a competent judge, yet I may say this, that it is a brief, smart, and (I hope) a true History of the darkness of Popery, the first Rise of the Reformation, and the great struggles for further Reformation ever since; and all this made good by the Writings of many Divines of the Church of England.

The Printer having left room at the latter end, I thought good to add a Sheet which I received from a Reverend Divine of the Church of England, which I hope will not offend the Author of this Treatise, in as much as it may be useful to the Reader to convince him that there are some conformable Divines, even at this time, that heartily desire and labor after Union and Communion with all the faithful in the Land, whether Conformists or Nonconformists; the Church of England having in her Articles given this definition of a Church, viz.

The visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful Men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's Ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. I leave the Reader to make the Inference.

TO THE BOOKSELLER.

THIS is not the first time, that you have been addressed from an unknown Hand, with matters which were worthy to be made known, and which by your charitable care have been made known to the whole English Nation.

The Character which you deservedly have, even in America, as well as Europe, is that of a good Man; and agreeably to that Character, you will by the Publication of the Manuscript here sent you, come to the Nation with good Tidings.

The Author of this Manuscript lies concealed from you, and from all its Readers, only that he may, till a fitter Opportunity, preserve his Teeth from some few kicking Unreasonables: But the Matter of it is a Discourse, wherein with Truth closely followed, there is expressed such a Spirit of union with all good Men, whether Conformists or Dissenters, that none of them can be offended at.

It cannot but be a Satisfaction unto the lovers of Truth, to be entertained with an History, thus unexceptionable: and a Person of such a disposition as yours, to serve your Country and the Church of God in all its Interests, cannot but rejoice in an opportunity to communicate unto the Public a little Book, accommodated so much as this, unto those Interests.

You will find the Composure brief; but you will find a variety of acceptable things, crowded into this grateful brevity: the Style also I hope you will find not unacceptable: and though 'twas written in the year 1696, I suppose 'tis grown but the more seasonable, by being till now reserved.

But all this I leave to your better Judgment, and subscribe,

ELEUTHERIA.

§. 1. WE have seen a great REVOLUTION, and we are e're long to see a greater.

There are very considerable Questions, which do, and will, and cannot but exercise the minds of good Men in the English Nation. To assist agreeable Answers unto those considerable Questions, there can scarce anymore significant thing be offered, than an incontestible Idea and History of the REFORMATION. And one is here briefly exhibited, which the consenting Pens of conformable Writers in the Church of England, all along here quoted, have rendered incontestible.

You have here a relation and a description of a marvelous Matter, whereof I may say, as Austin once did of another Matter, Quisquis non videt, caecus: Quisquis videt, nec laudat, ingratus: Quisquis laudanti reluctatur, insanus: Those Men are blind and mad who do not acknowledge it. But the Reader is thereupon surprised with a further Advice of this importance: Believest thou? Thou shalt see yet greater things than these. And when his courteous patience hath carried him to the end of this little Treatise, he will see upon what Authority this Expectation is with so much freedom uttered; he will see that it is no Fanaticism.

§. 2. And now, Reader, be willing to travel so far into Antiquity, as to take a view of the Condition, whereinto the Christian Church was fallen by the Apostasy, which, as the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ long before expressly foretold, was to come upon it. When the Imperial and Heathenish Power once flourishing at Rome, which hindered the Revelation of that wicked one, was taken out of the way; and in the fourth and fifth Century, the fierce Nations of the Northern Barbarians made their violent Assaults upon the Roman Empire, and carried all before 'em, with an irresistible Inundation of Desolation; Then a little Priest had opportunity to establish himself with a mixed Religion among those barbarous Nations, and then there appeared openly in the Temple of God that ANTICHRIST, who calls himself (what indeed the very name ANTICHRIST most properly signifies) The Vicar of CHRIST.

This Antichrist, or the Satanical Spirit, working in the Bishop of Rome, was conceived as early as twenty five years after the Ascension of our Lord, in affectations of Ecclesiastical Preheminency, when the Apostles accordingly gave notice of him; and he was completed about six hundred and sixty six years after this, when Image-Worship was effectually pressed by the Nebuchadnezzar of the Western Babylon, with the ruin of the Iconoclastick Emperors that refused it. But between those Terms, even about the year 450, there were no less than ten Sovereign Kingdoms, which, taking advantage from the Confusions whereinto the Empire was fallen, set up for themselves; and according to the Sacred Oracles, when those ten Kingdoms received their Power, then, even in that ONE HOUR, there got into the Throne the Antichristian Beast, unto whom it may be the Spirit of Prophecy had some respect in the most ancient Writings of the Old Testament, which mention the Leviathan. From the Shipwreck of the Empire there were quickly gathered Planks to patch up that Fabric, which they since call St. Peter 's Bark: a crafty Clergy under one spiritual Monarch, became the Conquerors of the Pagans, from whom they had been conquered; obtruding upon them a Christianity disguised with Paganism, and a Doctrine of Daemons, with a mighty Lerry of Miracles, and Austerities of forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from Meats, to render the Cup of their Abomination the more inebriating. Thus the deadly Wound given to the Fourth Monarchy was healed; the Dragon that inspired it under its Heathen form, did now no less inspire it under its Christian; and the faithful People of God were not mistaken in those days, in their Conjectures upon the Signs of times, when Rome 's falling into the Gothic hands, caused them to expect and exclaim with Jerome. He that hindered is now taken out of the way; ANTICHRIST is at hand! Gregory the Bishop of Rome had no sooner proclaimed it, in these memorable words of his twenty eighth Epistle, Because ANTICHRIST, that Enemy of the Almighty, IS NOW AT HAND — I speak it boldly; whoever calls himself, or desires to be called by others, The UNIVERSAL BISHOP, is the FORE-RUNNER OF ANTICHRIST. But Boniface the Bishop of Rome coming a few Months after him, obtained from the Traitor Phocas (Obtinuit magnâ tamen contentione, saith Platina ) The Title of THE SOVERAIGN AND UNIVERSAL BISHOP. To the Reign of the ANTICHRIST, and so of Idolatry, Persecution, and all mysterious Iniquity, thus come into play, the great Lord of all Time hath allowed a space, wearing the Denomination of TIME, TIMES, and HALF A TIME; or in plainer Expressions, twelve hundred and sixty Years; and so long all the effects of an horrible Apostasy make a very Gehinnom of that which was called CHRISTENDOM.

§. 3. While the doleful time of three hundred and sixty Years, and the yet more doleful two times of seven hundred and twenty years were slowly wheeling about, no Tongue is able to express, or Heart conceive, the lamentable Circumstances whereto the Holy God abandoned the World, for its indisposition to the blessed Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ: though Writings were then commonly dated Regnante Christo, yet it may be truly said, that Satan then reigned, so as never more uncontrolably. It was then the Hour and Power of Darkness; the Devil (in his Vicar and Vice-Roy ) was by the Wrath of God the King of Europe, and the Destroyer of the Faith; and it was but with too much of significancy, though a Prosopopeia bold enough, there were then •• amed Letters of Thanks from Lucifer the Prince of Darkness, and Emperor of the High Mysteries of Acheron, unto his dear Allies, the Clergy of the Church of this latter Age, which his Adversary Jesus Christ calls the Congregation of the Wicked, for the help which they had given him to bring the whole World under his Dominion; and saying this, among other things too justly said, Thou hast cleaved unto us, O our blessed Babylon; the Sovereignty of our Empire is by you propt up, and our intolerable loss restored! None but men intoxicated unto the degree of Campanella 's Phrensy, can dream (though he did, and wrote it) that this Reign of the Pope was the promised Reign of our Lord: It is this papal Confusion upon the World which is by the All-wise Permission of Heaven, that which lies in the way of what according to the Promise of God we look for: And so it must, and so it will, until the wicked One be destroyed by the brightness of the second coming of him, whom we expect from Heaven as our Savior.

In those dismal days, [ Reader, wilt thou not give thanks to God that thou wast not born in those days?] Clouds of thick Barbarity enveloped and overwhelmed all Schools of Literature. The famous Maxim of old John Dullard past for no less than a Maxim, Quanto eris melior Grammaticus, tanto pejor Theologus. Espencaeus, one of themselves, acknowledges that among their best Authors, Greece nosse suspectum fuerit, Hebraice proprie Haereticum. Zwingli and Collinus had like to have lost their lives for meddling with those dangerous Languages, Greek and Hebrew. To give the Etymology of the word Alleluja, racked the most extended Wits of whole Universities. The best Latin they wrote was little better than the stuff in the Epistolae obscurorum virorum; the reading whereof cast the witty Erasmus into such a fit of laughter as broke an Abscess in his face, whereinto the Surgeons were going to make an Incision. What jejune and wretched Fooleries were the highest Learning of Colleges, the more learned Bullinger alone is a sufficient Relator: A little of Aristotle, confounded rather than expounded by the Commentaries of the Schoolmen, with an heap of pitiful Cobweb-Notions, was the Flinty Diet then gnaw'd upon; and Ludovicus Vives roundly swears for them, that when they sometimes bragged of such abilities in Disputation as would have been too hard for Aristotle himself, Ego id pro vobis dejerabo, nam quas arts vos modo exomniastis, quas nugas, & quidem ex illius, ut putatis, Dogmatibus, ipse si revivisceret, non intelligerit, ac ne suos quidem Libros, ut vos explicatis. Their Divinity was by a Renowned Writer, who lived three hundred years ago, too truly compared unto the Apples of Sodom, that under a fair skin had nothing but Ashes and Poison. Doctors of Divinity were created, and pronounced most sufficient, who never had read the Bible, (nor indeed had they any other Bible, than that vulgar Latin, wherein one of themselves, Isidorus Clarius, declares that he found fourscore thousand Errors: ) and, as Erasmus reports of them, at fourscore years of Age they had studied nothing but a few silly Sophisms; and if anything were quoted out of St. Paul, it astonished them. Stephens and Gerhard are competent Witnesses, that the Preachers of no less than half an hundred years standing, had never seen the New Testament: Musculus affirms, that multitudes of them never saw the Scriptures in their Lives; or if they ever did, it was like the Arch-Bishop of Mainz, of whom Amama tells us, that opening the Bible, he said, In truth I donit know what Book this is, but I perceive everything in it is against us. Their Sermons were accordingly but ridiculous Harangues upon the Relics or Merits of the Saints; or else the more exquisite Postillers made Peter Lombard, or Thomas Aquinas, or Duns Scotus, the Oracles upon which they discoursed: Plures extiterunt (says Thanner) Thomistae quam Biblici. And as Melancthon affirms, Aristotle's Ethics was in the public Churches usually treated on; but all were generally of Hosius 's Perswasion, Longe meliori talo res Ecclesiae staturas fuisse, si nullum Evangelium scriptum fuisset. In those days the Face of the Earth was almost covered with Religious Houses, as they called them; from whence continually issued out the swarms of those Locusts, the several Orders of the Religious, who in the great smoke of the bottomless Pit, which they brought with them, tormented Mankind exceedingly. Alsted above one hundred years ago, reckons two hundred twenty five thousand, forty and four Monasteries in Christendom; in which, if we reckon only twenty persons belonging at the same time to each of these Monasteries one with another, the Sum total amounts to four Millions five hundred thousand eighty and eight Souls. If after so many Nations had utterly suppressed these Academies of the Devil, they were yet so numerous, what horrid Shoals of Poisoners was the World before such a suppression plagued withal? Their Cells were not the seats of the Muses and the Graces, as Mutius tells us that Charles the Great intended them, when he founded so many of them; no, they were, as Hospinian tells us, rather squalid Prisons, and such Nurseries of ignorance, that, More ignorant than a Monk, was a Proverb for the most ignorant; and it was no abuse to style the Wretches who dwelt in them, Stoicas simias, cucullata Monstra, inscitiae & Cacologiae Doctors: yea they were the very Habitations of Devils, the Holds of every foul Spirit, the Cages of every hateful and unclean Bird; and such Antichambers of Hell itself, that if after Bernard 's Invectives against them, we peruse the incontestible Accounts of them who then went under the name of the Religious, reported by Petrus Cluniacensis, by Cerbo Augustinianus, by Gualo, and Nigellus, and Honorius and Polydore Virgil, and others, but especially by old Nicolaus de Clemangis, we shall wonder at the Divine Patience that the Fate of Sodom (still impending over the abominable City of Rome ) did not overtake them. The King over those Children of Pride, whose Title was His Holiness, ordinarily was a very Devil for wickedness, an Heretic, a Conjurer, a Perjurer, a Murderer, a Sodomite; such a filthy pack there was of them, that heathen Rome, with all her Nero 's, or Domitian 's, or Commodus 's, or Heliogabalus 's, could never match them: And it may be guessed, what Saints the Common Soldiers were, when they had such Hell-brands to be their Leaders. In those days the Worship of our Lord Jesus Christ was everywhere lost in a depraved mixture of Jewish and Pagan Rites (not without additions from the Quran: ) cursed Charms, and thousands of magical Tricks, were everywhere introduced, instead of our Lord 's Institutions; insomuch that the Author of the Fasciculus Temporum says, A Monster of a Dog's Head on a Man's Body, exhibited unto Lewis, been potuit monstrosum statum significare hujus Temporis: Exorcisms and Amulets, and very diabolical Fopperies were of universal use. The Faithful were sacrilegiously cheated of the Cup in the Eucharist (though our Lord foreseeing this, expressly bad them ALL drink of it; ) and the monstrous Figment of Transubstantiation was thrust down their throats with burning Firebrands. The variegated Idolatry of Artolatry, and Mariolatry, and Hagiolatry, and Angelolatry, and Leipsanolatry, and Ikonolatry, filled the Devotions of Mankind. A vile Man sitting in his Pontifical Chair, was with infinite Blasphemy adored as the Lord God, and that Style of Dominus Deus noster Papa most blasphemously usurped. And such Devilism ruled in all places, that the Historians of these Periods cannot forbear crying out with Vitoduranus, O quam lamentabilis, & execrabilis deformitas Ecclesiae, illis in temporibus facta est! In those days a pretended Successor to Simon Peter, advanced by the Arts of Simon Magus (and inferior Ecclesiastics usually followed the Example) exercised a prodigious Tyranny over the Children of Men in all their Interests: The People could not approach the Word of Life; the Bread of Life was detained in inaccessible Concealments, and the blind led the blind; the Colliers Creed no man might presume to go beyond: Oaths of absolute Obedience to the Holy See fettered the Consciences of Men: Laws above and beyond, and contrary to those of our Lord were imposed upon Men, so many as make huge Volumes of Canons in Folio; Decrees, Decretals and Extravagants made a huge body of Laws for all men to observe, which wise men would even disdain to study, but say with the Prophet, Non possumus, Domine, vesci stercore humano: Laws whereof Agrippa, who was a Doctor thereof, says, Non sunt à Deo nec ad Deum, sed a corrupto hominum ingenio profecta, & ad avaritiam excogitata. Filthy Lucre was all that was pursued by the greedy Dogs, who had now taken the charge of the Flocks; and the forlorn Flocks, that saw (as Mantuan deplores it) there were

were under all possible Temptations to fall into downright Atheism. The Marriage of Priests was made a Crime unpardonable by those that were the most profligate of Whoremasters, Qui conjugia damnando prefitentur se nasci non debuisse: And one grand Brothel-House was made of that which was called the House of God. That Sham, the Fire of Purgatory, was an Engin that made a lewd and a vast Crew of knavish Churchmen, under a vow of Poverty, live merrily upon Rostmeat all their days. An Historian of their own asserts it with some resentment concerning the one Kingdom of England in particular, That there was not remaining so much Treasure in the Kingdom as these Wretches had in one three years extorted, and exported out of it, the Vessels of the Church only excepted: Infamous Indulgences, denominated very properly The Treasury of the Church, were, as Rivet calls them, Emulgences, whereby besotted Sinners were milk'd of all the money they had: These did, as Matthew Paris expresses it, Romanorum loculos impraegnare, cram the Coffers of the Romanists: But so ingenuous is the Taxa Camerae Apostolicae, as to confess, Nota diligenter, quod hujusmodi gratiae non conceduntur pauperibus; quià non habent, ergo non possunt consolari. A proud Prelate would set his foot upon the neck of Princes: Emperors must hold the stirrup for mounted Beggars: Crowned Heads were treated with wonderful Indignities by a Tyrant of Souls; and if any one began to dispute his Tyranny, they dreadfully thunderstruck him, embarassed him, and ruined him with their Anathemas; two Emperors alone were under a necessity to fight at least threescore bloody Battles against Enemies, which the Pope had raised against them. The Immunity from the secular Power claimed by Ecclesiastics, and the command which by means of Auricular Confession they got over the Souls of Men, put the world under an intolerable Slavery to the Powers of darkness. —But hold my Pen! 'It is here no place for thee to transcribe the Letters of Petrarch to his friends about Rome 's being the Mother of Harlots, or the Complaints which Clemangis made several hundreds of years ago, De corrupto Ecclesiae statu, or to abridg the whole Cartloads of Books, which a whole Army of Protestants (besides Monsieur Claude ) have since written in defense of the Reformation. It is enough to bring in Baronius himself, lamenting the Tempora Ecclesiae infelicissima, & luctuosissima, The lamentable times, when into the Chair of Peter [Sir, Your Eminence might have called it, The Chair of Pestilence! ] there got horribly dissolute, villanous, and infamous Monsters; when Strumpets ruled the Roast, and all holy Canons and Customs were extinguished; when our Lord Jesus Christ slept in the Ship with a profound sleep, and the violent Winds overwhelmed it, and he raised up no man to correct these things; yea, which was worst of all, there were no Disciples to awaken our Lord with their cries, but a dead sleep was upon them all.

§. 4. Were there no Attempts of good Men in this doleful Time, and in these woeful Times, to recover the Church out of this deplorable Apostasy? Yes, but unsuccessful enough, because the last Half-time of the Antichrist was not yet arrived. Many particular Witnesses of the Truth, illuminated by the Grace of Heaven, saw through the thick mists of Error in these Ages of darkness; and in the very darkest places of the Earth, which was then filled with Habitations of Cruelty, so many were these Witnesses, that the World knows, the Catalogue of them hath made a Folio: And as those eminent men whose Heart-strings were made of a little finer Clay than the grosser part of Mankind, could not without much Abomination, behold the abominable Principles and Practices then commonly prevailing; so there were not a few of them, who particularly discerned the evident Characters of ANTICHRIST. It is five hundred years ago, that Abbot Joachim told the two Kings of England and France, That Antichrist was he who was then set on high on the Apostolic Seat in the City of Rome; and that in the time of this Antichrist many Christians shall preserve the true Faith in Dens and Caves of the Earth, and in desert places, even until the consummation of Antichrist; and as long ago it is, that Peter of Blois exhorted his Friends in time to depart from the midst of that Babylon. It is impossible without admiration to read the most exquisite Oration made by the Bishop of Saltsburgh to the States of the Empire, in the year 1240, in which he calls the Popes the Priests of Babylon; and finds at Rome the Antichrist which had the ten Horns, or Kings of Europe under him. Yea, as early as the year 991, a whole Council of Gallick Bishops cried out upon the Pope, He is the Antichrist who sits in the Temple of God! But the Admonitions of these great Men were generally Songs unto the deaf; I say generally, because I cannot say universally: I do particularly know, that in the twelfth Century, there was a Treatise emitted in the name of some faithful Servants of Christ, concerning the Antichrist, which they said was then manifest in the Papacy; whereupon some did then separate. But the time for favor, the set time was not yet come! Indeed all this while our Lord Jesus Christ had his chaster Church, visibly existing among that chosen and holy Generation of People who, as Leger hath proved, were called Valdenses, long before the time of Peter Valdo, which name (as they are now called Vandois from the word Vaux, that signifies a Vally ) belonged unto them, as inhabiting the Valleys of the Alps. From the sworn Enemies of that renowned People, we will briefly take their (therefore credible ) Character and History. Claudius Sesselius the Archbishop of Turin, in a Book which he writ against the Waldenses, tells us, That the Sect of the Waldenses took its rise from a most religions Person, called Leo, that lived in the time of Constantine the Great, and who detesting the Covetousness of Pope Sylvester, and the immoderate Bounty of Constantine, chose rather to embrace Poverty with the simplicity of the Christian Faith, than with Sylvester to be defied with fat and rich Benefices; and that all they who were seriously Religious, joined themselves unto him. Reynerus Sacco the celebrated Inquisitor, quoted by the Jesuit Cretzer in his Biliotheque of the Fathers, has a like Passage; he says, Among all the Sects there is none that hath been so pernicious to the Church of Rome as that of the Leonists, because it is the most ancient, and hath continued longest; for some affirm that it began in the time of Sylvester, and others in the time of the Apostles; and because they who are of it, have a great show of Piety, live virtuously before Men, believe rightly of the Deity, and observe all the Articles of the Creed. The Friar Belvedoras, excusing the Missionaries for their not converting so much as one of the Waldenses, when they were sent among them, assigns this Reason for it; The Heresy is too firmly rooted there, for any to be able to do good among them; they of the Valleys have been always, and through all times accounted Heretics. That sort of People called Waldenses, whose Errors, as Cascini the Franciscan Friar declares, consisted in this, That they denied the Church of Rome to be the Holy Mother-Church, and would not obey her Traditions: These, for the condition they submitted unto, were called the Poor Men of Lions: In Dauphine, they were nicknamed Chaignards: From the Country of Albie, where their opinions much obtained, they were called Albigenses: Tramontani were those called that passed the Alps: In England they were called Lollards, from one Lollard, a chief Instructer of them there; and strict Laws were there made against the Conventicles of those that had this name applied unto them; [ Quaere, Whether ever yet repealed?] In Italy they were called Fratricelli, or Men of the Brotherhood, from their brotherly way of living with one another: In Germany they were called Gazares, a word that carries the highest Cursedness and Wickedness in the signification of it: In Flanders they had the name of Turpelins, that is to say, Men dwelling with Wolves, because the heat of Persecution sometimes drove them to seek for quarters among the wild Beasts in the Wilderness. This People were still disposed in sundry parts of Europe, with Circumstances no better than those which we have newly seen; Abbot Joachim, as their Quarter-Master, providing for them. They were always despised, always distressed, always under hatches: When they made any Figure, the bloody Church of Rome, which cannot anymore cease bloodily to persecute the Church of Christ, than the Leopard can change his Spots, quickly thundered out barbarous Croisados against them; in one of which Crosaidos alone, Bellarmine himself with triumph relates, there were killed no less than an hundred thousand; and Perionius avers, that in France alone by one Persecution upon this People, there were no less than ten hundred thousand murdered. When such terrible Dissipations were overwhelming the Churches of our Lord abroad, it pleased him in the fourteenth Century to bless our English Nation at home, with our memorable Wycliffe, who sounded the alarm of Reformation louder than any that had been before him; he being instructed especially by the Works of the godly and learned Robert Grosthead, set himself to decry the Pope as the very Antichrist; and that men might be rescued from the Snares of Popery, he not only preached and wrote against the villainies of the Popish Clergy, but also translated the whole Bible into the English Language; whereby those Impressions were made on the minds of Men that never could be totally effaced. His very Adversaries professed themselves astonished at his Exercises and Abilities; none of the Bulls that roared from Rome against him, nor all the tricks of Papal Malice, at home, could prevent his dying peaceably in a good old Age at Lutterworth: the very name of which Town (signifying the Pure Word ) hath in it a pleasant intimation of what this Town and the World was by Wycliffe irradiated withal. But some of his followers, especially one Peter Payn, carried his Doctrines into Germany, where John Huss was thereby enlightened, and the Hussites began to grow considerable. Happy WICKLIFF! of whom, though the mad Papists long after burnt his Bones, we will assign for an Epitaph, part of the Encomium which the Son of Sirach bestowed on Simon the Son of Onias: He was as the Morning-Star in the midst of a Cloud, and as a Rainbow diverting the fears of a Deluge.

§. 5. If Idolatry, if Heresy, if Cruelty could make a Babylon, the Church of Rome was now such a Babylon, that all who had any concern for their own everlasting Welfare, must think themselves concerned now to come out of her; and it is well done of you, ye foolish Romanists, to confess, that by Babylon the Oracles of Heaven intend Rome, when you go to prove Peter 's being at Rome from the Text where you find him at Babylon; Sirs, Who hath bewitched you? Christianity was now so lost among the generality of them who wore the name of Christians, that their description may be given in the language of Bernard, one too far himself plunged in the general Apostasy, Religions Antiquae non selum virtutem amiserunt, sed nec speciem retinent. Let us behold an Idea of the Apostasy!

I. Until the time of the Restitution of all things, 'tis the Gospel purely and plainly preached that must represent the Lord JESUS CHRIST unto the faith, and love, and joy of his People. But the Apostate Church, disliking such a spiritual Representation of our Lord, forbids People to read the Scripture, and instead thereof ascends into Heaven to bring from thence Images of his heavenly Glory; descends into the Deep, to bring up Crucifixes and Images of his resurrection from the Dead; and they must have graven Images of Christ, that he may be nigh unto them; as the fond People of old had their Calf in the Wilderness.

II. The real Beauty of Divine Worship lies in our devout homage to one God in three Persons, and our distinct respect unto each of those Persons: But the Apostate Church, not beholding this Beauty, instead thereof set off their own Worship with an external Pomp, agreeable to carnal minds; meretricious Allurements, under the pretence of Decency, and all the Pageantry of Ceremonies, Vestments, Gestures, Music, Painting, and beggarly Elements, Rites never instituted.

III. Believers are admitted unto a very peculiar and most intimate Communion with our Lord Redeemer, in the Sacrament of the holy Supper; A CHRIST suffering for us, is in that Sacrament, by the Symbols of Bread and Wine, so tendered unto the faithful, that in their obedience to his appointment of it, they do with ineffable advantage partake of him therein. But the Apostate Church, not having the internal experience of this matter, have in the room thereof, invented the sottish and horrid Monster of Transubstantiation, with the Sacrifice of the Mass. They that could not bow down to this Image, have been cast into the fiery Furnace!

IV. There is a Catholic Church which is a Mystical Society, purchased and purified by the blood of the Lord Christ, and married unto him, and possessed by his Holy Spirit; part of this Family of God is, in conjunction with the holy Angels, arrived unto perfect Holiness in Heaven; part is on Earth, in the sure way unto it. But the Apostate Church confines to itself the Notion of the Catholic Church; it is a Society whereto not one inward and sincere Grace of Christianity is requisite; a visible profession of subjection to Romish Canons, is all that is required unto the Constitution of that Society; 'tis a wicked thing, by cursed Ligaments compounded for a secular Domination, that anathematizes all that conform not unto the Superstitions of it; and a Moloch which horribly devours the Children cast by the Ghostly Fathers into its devouring Flames.

V. The Churches true Glory lies in its Union to its Lord; his Presence with it, and Spirit in it; and its conformity and fidelity to his Laws alone: all the Gaities of this World are not comparable to this Glory. But the Apostate Church cannot see any comeliness in the Spouse of Christ as adorned only with his Graces: in the place thereof they have brought in worldly Grandeurs, Dignities, Promotions; and the Glories of this World, which our Savior would not accept at the Devil's hands, and on the Devil's Terms, in his Temptations, the Devil has proffered unto this Man of Sin, and he has accepted of them.

VI. The Church is a Body which must have an Head, both for Influence and for Government, always present with it: And it is a wonder how Men could think of any other Head for this Body, besides the Lord Jesus Christ, without casting away their Bibles. But the Apostate Church have set up another supreme Head of the Church, even the Pope, the worst Idol that ever was heard of: One Pope rescinds the Decrees of another, and it may be throws the Carcase of his Predecessor into the River; yea, Wretches which even their own Votaries in their most allowed Histories call Monsters, and such as for their Diabolical Practices, yea, their explicit Covenants with Devils, and their being very Devils in Flesh, were confessed Ecclesiae opprobria, have been set up as the Vicars of Christ, the Centers of Unity, and the Husbands of the Church.

VII. The Discipline which our Lord has commanded his Church to observe, must be such as to serve the Designs of Holiness, and show unto Mankind the Love, Care and Faithfulness of the Lord himself towards the Church, and give a Testimony and Praeludium of his future Judgment; all of an Efficacy purely spiritual. But the Apostate Church in the lieu thereof, has erected a Discipline, consisting in a mere Tyranny over the Estates, the Liberties, the Lives of Men; a Tyranny managed with Weapons, which are mighty through the Devil, to destroy all that it falls upon; a Tyranny which by Courts, Fines, Mulcts, Imprisonments and Capital Executions, hath made the Earth a Shambles, and been drunk with the Blood of Martyrs.

VIII. The Disciples of our Lord own themselves obliged by him as far as they can, to disciple all Nations; They that have obtained precious Faith, must as they are able, propagate the Faith; Nevertheless, 'tis only the diligent and patient, and uncorrupt preaching of the Gospel, by which the Gospel would run and be glorified. But the Apostate Church dislikes this primitive way of proselyting Mankind unto the obedience of the Gospel: A Congregatio de propagandâ side, with a vast crew of Missionaries from the overstockt Fraternities, is continually employed for the gaining of Proselytes; but by what Methods? truly by Fire and Sword, and bloody Murders and Massacres, like those which the Spaniards committed upon the poor Indians, when the Children of Cain butcher'd more Innocents in America, than some think there are People alive at any one time in Europe: or by the Inquisition, a thing that cannot be painted, without first besmearing, as the exact Painter for that purpose once did it, the Table with Blood; a mere Cacus 's Den, the horriblest Arsenal of Cruelty that ever was upon the face of the Earth; or finally, by Seditions, Rebellions, Conspiracies, the embroiling of Nations, and subverting their fundamental Constitutions, ensnaring wretched Persons, first into Debauchery, so into Atheism, then into Indigency, that they may an last be taken in the Snares of Popery.

IX. 'It is a principle of our blessed Religion, that God the Sovereign Lord of all things, is to be obeyed absolutely and universally: His Will is to be the highest Reason of our Obedience. But the Apostate Church has superceeded this, by imposing upon Men a Vow of blind Obedience to their Superiors, urging for that Vow the Example of Abraham 's Obedience: And thus all the Interests of Men lie at the Mercies of a spurious Offspring, the most unnatural Dregs of Mankind, who are nourished up to be the Janisaries of the Papal Empire.

X. The Nature of Man is polluted by Sin, and the pollution must be taken away before Men can enter into the Kingdom of God; nor can anything but the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, cleansing us from all our Sins, take it away. But the Apostate Church discerns not the sweetness of this Mystery, the Blood of the Son of God applied unto the Conscience, to purge it from dead works: the paltry Fopperies of Holy Water, of Pilgrimages, of Disciplines, of Masses, and various Commutations, were employed as Purgations of Sin; and when they found that these things would neither purify nor pacify the Conscience, they feigned a certain subterraneous Purgatory, where the Souls of Men were by exquisite Afflictions made meet for Heaven; and their Venial Sins, which they make the most, are capable of an Expiation after this life, though there were no Repentance in it; and this Fiction they placed behind the Curtain of Mortality, that so no man living might find out the Cheat: and thus adding an imaginary Store-house of Ecclesiastical Merits, the Keys whereof are committed unto that great Adulterer at Rome, they have cheated Nations of Riches far beyond the Revenues of Emperors.

XI. All our help against the Flesh, the World, and the Devil, and our Deliverance from all evil, is in our Lord Jesus Christ alone; who by his Death on the Cross, purchased all this Good for us; and it is by Faith in him, that we bespeak and enjoy the actual Communication of it. But the Apostate Church only makes the sign of the Cross, instead of an Application to him who died on it: and innumerable Virtues do they ascribe unto this cursed Idol.

XII. They that approach unto God, should be in all holiness free from offensive Defilements. But the Apostate Church hath to this end borrowed from the old Pagans, the ludicrous Trifles of sprinkling all with holy Water, that they may be holy.

XIII. That our Souls may live, the death of our Sins is necessary; and it is in the Destruction and Extinction of our vicious Habits, by the Spirit of Christ crucified, in the daily Duties of laborious Devotion, that we have our necessary Mortification. But the Apostate Church has prescribed Monastical Retirements, Penances, and Self-Macerations, not pleasing unto God, but highly pleasing to the Daemons in Chains, whose delight it is to see Men also in Chains of Darkness.

XIV. Good Works, though utterly excluded from any share in the Justification of Sinners, are yet indispensably needful to the present and future Comfort of Believers. But the Apostate Church, pretending to perform good Works from their own Free-will, do advance the pretence unto the vain pride of Merit in them; yea they carry on the Merit, even to a Supererrogation. Such Protestant Pens as our incomparable Owen 's, have abundantly stated these points of the grand Apostasy. I think I have now recited no less than twice seven Articles, of that woeful Apostasy, whereinto the Church in the Western part of the Roman Empire was precipitated, while at the same time the Church in the Eastern part of the Empire fell under the Mahometan Oppressions and Confusions. And now

But is not here enough to anticipate the Apprehensions of my Reader, that the truest and furthest Recovery out of the Romish Apostasy hitherto seen, is that which they that go by the Name of Non-Conformists in the English Nation, have endeavored? And that it is not possible for the Church to recover effectually out of this Apostasy, without acting upon such Principles as have at last produced in the American Desarts, a whole Nation of Non-Conformists?

§. 6. Till the TIME, and the TIMES of Antichrist had rolled away, the call to come out of Babylon could not become effectual unto the Nations that were under the Babylonish Intoxications; but when the last HALF TIME of an hundred and eighty years, left for the Reign of this Antichrist, was entering, it was high time for our Lord JESUS CHRIST, then to make some reprisal of that Kingdom. Which at the time of the end, shall under the whole Heaven be given to the People of the Saints of the Most High. Then it was, that the remarkable Prophecies uttered by the two Bohemian Martyrs an hundred years before, must receive their accomplishment; and the People who had been too long fleec'd, yea, flay'd by the Tyrannies of Rome, grew willing to pare the Talons of the Ecclesiastical Harpies. Behold how great a Matter a little Fire kindles! In the year 1617, Pope Leo X. under a pretence of War against the Turk, sent abroad his Indulgences, promising the Pardons of Sins to all that would give Money for them; and among the Hacksters of these Pardons, was one Tecelius, a Dominican Friar, of whom Lonicerus writes, Pontificis dignitatem & potentiam, Indulgentiarumque virtutem & efficaciam impudenter praedicabat; yea, he adds, The Man kept bawling, that there could be no wickedness committed, so great, but it might be forgiven by these Indulgences; and that the Souls tormented in Purgatory, as soon as the Money [ten Shillings] was flung into the Bason, skipt for Joy, and being released from their Pains, flew up to Heaven. MARTIN LUTHER, one born at Isleben in Saxony, and now a Monk in the Order of St. Augustine, and a Professor of Divinity at Wittemberg, but a Person illuminated in the Article of Justification, by the private Conferences and Expositions of an honest old Monk on Paul 's Epistles, began to oppose the impudent Cheats and Shams which these Collectors of the Pope imposed on the People. He first wrote Letters to the Archbishop of Mainz, and the Bishop of Brandenburgh, for the restraint of these Abuses; the neglect of which Letters egg'd him on to publish Propositions, which exasperated the business, till he had been made a Sacrifice unto the Papal Fury, if the Duke of Saxony, then upon the Death of the Emperor, the Vicar of the Empire, had not been so moved by his powerful Preaching, as to abet him, and assist him in his Undertakings. This was that famous Luther, of whom they that will acknowledge the least, must yet come to as much acknowledgment as Dr. More makes of him:

About the very same time, or about a year before, did Zwingli appear at Zurich in Switzerland, against the like Abominations of Popery; nor could all the Compliments and Enchantments, with offers of Preferments from the Pontifical Chair, bribe him into silence; but he went on, till the Evangelical Truth was far and near embraced. Long would be our work, to transcribe S • eidan, and relate the Actions of Melancthon that accompanied Luther, and of Oecolampadius that accompanied Zwingli in the Reformation; or so much as to recite the Names of the more than thirty Worthies, who were by the marvelous Providence of Heaven, raised up to act great parts in this mighty Revolution; and who had no secular Encouragements, but bravely denied and renounced rich Livings, and encountered with the Cross in all its mortifications, for the sake of the Gospel, and were not unwilling to die, as well as to live, under the Circumstances particularly related concerning some of them intestate, Quià unde conderet, pauper Christi servus, non habebat: Only because the Name of CALVIN, a Person to be reckoned one of the first three, is unaccountably, since the Tares of Arminius have been so cherished, become an Object of scorn and hate, among a Generation of masqueraded Enemies to the Reformation, who arrogate unto themselves the style of The Church of England, I may not leave that venerable name unmention'd, but I must mention it with an Account of the Veneration, which the old Church of England paid unto it, when Dr. Carlton the Bishop of Chichester, in a Book dedicated unto K. Charles I. Anno 1626. thus wrote; And when Dr. Hakewel, Chaplain to Prince Charles, in a Book dedicated unto K. James I. Anno 1616, wrote thus: And when Dr. Hoyl, a judicious Divine of the Church of England, in a Book dedicated unto Archbishop Usher, as being written by his direction, wrote after this manner; And much more to this purpose, too much to be in this place repeated, concerning this incomparable Man; the first line of whose Epitaph, at last gave him his true commendation: Romae ruentis Terror ill maximus. As for the common Cavil of our Episcopalians, that Calvin was he who rebelliously expel'd the Bishop of Geneva, the Chief Magistrate of the City, 'tis as true as Heylins Geography of that City. Let not me, but a conformable Author, Dr. Henry More, assure the Reader that the Bishop fled away eight months before Calvin 's coming, being hated by the Citizens for the Rape of a Virgin, and many Adulteries with their Wives, and in fear of his life for his Conspiracy with the Duke of Savoy, to oppress the Liberties of the City, for which his Secretary was hanged; and they who changed the Government were strong Papists, and afterwards main Opposers of the Reformation. But I hasten to observe, that when Angels thus flew thro the midst of Heaven, preaching the everlasting Gospel, so quick was the Progress of the Gospel, and so wonderful its Conquest, and its Triumph, as to fill half of Europe in less than forty years, with Churches, which from a Protestation made by several States, that were zealous for the Reformation, against the Decrees of a Popish Diet, in the year 1526, have been ever since called PROTESTANTS: A Progress of Protestantism, which at length caused Bellarmine, to confess and complain, That Heresy now possessed almost all Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweedland, Gothia, Hungary, France, England, Scotland, the Low Countries, Polonia, Bohemia, Helvetia, and it was got over the Alps into Italy.

The time was now come that the ten Kings must begin to hate the Whore that had bewitched them; which Hatred was very particularly exemplified by K. James V. of Scotland, when the Popish Prelates were advising him to destroy his Nobles and Barons that were Friends unto the Reformation: Wherefore (said he, as 'tis related by that rare Gentleman, Sir James Melvil) did my Predecessors give so many Lands and Rents to the Kirk? Was it to maintain Hawks, Dogs and Whores to a number of idle Priests? The King of England hangs you; the King Denmark beheads you; and I will stick you with this Whingar! Whereupon he drew out his Dagger, and they fled out of his Presence.

'It is observed that, in the first Song that any Writings have recorded or mentioned, even that of Moses, many words are put in the future Tense, and the very first words are, Then SHALL sing Moses. I am not ignorant, that from this very Remark the Jewish Rabbins hence infer'd the Doctrine of the Resurrection; and there are Christian Writers, who hence infer that the Song looks not only backward, on the deliverance of the Church from Egypt, but also forward, on the deliverance of the Church from that worse than Egyptian, even the Antichristian Yoke in the latter days. Truly, the Church now was beginning to get out from the Sea, where though they had been tortured with Fire, yet they had hitherto been detained with impassable Flakes of Ice over their Heads: The Church now therefore began to sing the Song of Moses the Servant of God, and Heaven echoed unto the Melody: And now

§. 7. When the ancient Babylon was to be destroyed, way was to be made for it, as the Sacred Oracles foretold, By the drying up of her Waters; and Xenophon, as well as others, reports to us, how wonderfully Cyrus fulfilled what was foretold, when he made his Passage to Babylon, by turning the Euphrataan Waters into another Channel. Then it was not long before her broad Walls [fifty Cubits broad, saith Herodotus] were broken down, and her high Gates [two hundred Cubits high, saith Strabo] were burnt with Fire. Truly, the Reformation thus begun, did wonderfully turn the Waters of our Mystical Babylon into another Channel; whole Nations of People were turned another way: And this prepares that Babylon for the approaching day; when Babylon shall become a Desolation among the Nations, and she shall become a burning Mountain, overthrown as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. But the Antichrist had yet an half-time to reign; and therefore no wonder if but half-work were done in the separation then made from him. Nevertheless, the Reformation which was nowhere fully perfect, had in several Nations, various degrees of its perfection; some went much further than others in restoring of Primitive Christianity, and reforming of all things, according to the word of Christ. In this matter, very particular and remarkable was the Condition of England, where the best part of the Reformers who began the Work in the days of King Henry VIII. on Motives and in Manners well known to the World, and carried it on in the days of K. Edward VI. did really desire to pursue it as far as they should see light for it in the Sacred Scripture, the only Rule of Reformation; but there was always a corrupt, and cunning Party, who being jealous of too far a Secession from Rome, did resolve still to retain at least so much of the Romish Discipline, as might gratify their Aims at a worldly Domination in the Church of God. All the World hath long since been informed, that in the year 1554. a number of considerable Protestants, flying from the bloody storm of Persecution, with which the miserable Queen Mary for a while retarded and confounded the Reformation, that the Reign of her ever glorious Brother had so far advanced, were kindly entertained at Frankford; and when those Holy Men pursued that Reformation so far, as to leave out of their Worship those unhappy Ceremonies, which they perceived likely to prove scandalous unto the purer Churches of God, several Men that were furiously zealous for the Ceremonies, did with all possible fury disturb them in their Proceedings. This renowned Congregation of Non-Conformists, then wrote unto Zurich in their own Vindication, such memorable words as these:

Those great Men, Mr. Knox, Mr. Fox, Mr. Cole and Mr. Whittingham, composed a Directory for the Congregation, like that of Geneva; and Knox preached, But by the infamous Bigotry of Dr. Cox and his Associates, conformity to the scrupled Ceremonies was pressed at such a rate, that the oppressed Congregation was driven away unto Basil and Geneva; and the Prelatical party contented not themselves, without seeking the very Blood of Mr. Knox by an accusation prefer'd against him; an Accusation so barbarous and inhumane, that the Magistrates of the City to whom it was brought, expressed their abhorrence of it; howbeit, his removal was thereby occasioned. If now there were inscribed on the Graves of these Persons [In their Coffins here now lie shut up, they that first opened the true PANDORA'S Box in the English Nation] it would be a stroke less liable to contestation, than that Popish one, which afterwards in Dr. Coxes Epitaph, gave such scandal as to be demolished. Reader, In these troubles at Frankford, there was the Epitome, and in some sort the Original of the struggles about Reformation, both pro and con, which have ever since distressed the Church of God in the English Nation: until at length a new England was found out, as a refuge from the storm of unscriptural Impositions urged with unnatural Persecutions. From the very beginning of the Reformation, there hath always been a Generation of Godly Men, desirous to pursue the Reformation of Religion, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, according to the word of God, and the example of the best Reformed Churches: and there hath been another Generation of Men who have employed the Power which they have still generally had in their hands, not only to stop the progress of the desired Reformation, but also with innumerable vexations to persecute those that were the most hearty friends unto it. All Mankind knows that among those who jointly forsook the Papacy, there were different apprehensions about the Worship and Order to be maintained in the Church; and we have no Record of any attempt for the healing of these differences, before there was by Law established one certain Form of Worship and Order; which thro the pertinacious adherency not only of most People unto their old ways, but even of the Bishops and Clergy, the greatest part of whom disliked the whole Reformation; and through the extreme scarcity of able Ministers, underwent as little alteration from the former Usages as was possible. This Constitution of things was very dissatisfactory to very many of the best Men in the Land; who yet considering the necessity of the Times, did more or less acquiesce in it, hoping and pleading that the Reformation might proceed in due time unto more of Purity: but they that found their own secular Interests accommodated in this Constitution, set themselves after a while to fine, silence, deprive, censure, and imprison those that were dissatisfied, and smite their Fellow-Servants, who remained in privacy under their Sufferings, waiting still for more of Reformation. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his Border, wherefore Israel turned away from him! After some years of a fruitless expectation, the severities which were multiplied upon them drove multitudes unto a more open separation from the things that were by Law established: a separation, which yet was opposed by others that also passionately longed and even groaned for a National Reformation. Tho not being wholly agreed among themselves about the measure of Separation or of Reformation to be attended unto, there ensued several Inconveniencies thereupon which had no little Temptation in them. Then 'twas, that, as our great Owen has expressed it, Multitudes of pious, peaceable Protestants were driven by their Severities to leave their Native Country, and seek a Refuge for their Lives and Liberties, with freedom for the worship of God in a Wilderness, in the ends of the Earth. There are none that more heartily bless God for the first Reformers, and for the service they did in the Reformation, or that more firmly cleave to their Doctrine which was the Life and Soul of Reformation, than these Non-conformists have ever done, or that more try to follow them in their noble design. But, as those first Reformers never intended that what they did should be the absolute boundary of Reformation, from whence it were a sin to dissent or depart, which would have been to have only changed one Popery for another, and quite contrary to their own going beyond Wycliffe, and changing and growing in their own models also, and the ingenuous Confessions of the great Cranmer particularly, who fatchatur multa detracta oportere superflua, & ardentibus votis cupiebat ea in melius correcta; And the Orders of King Edward unto Bucer, to write for further Amendments, whom accordingly we find in his Learned Scripta Anglicana doing so; thus the Non-conformists have been willing to imitate them in exercising that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free. This is very sure, that those very Principles upon which the first Reformers built the Reformation, are those that have produced and justified the hundreds of thousands of Non-conformists which have so long asked for further steps to be taken in it; namely those Principles, that the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ is a perfect Rule of all that we are to believe or practice in Religion: and, that Christian People not being tied up to the blind obedience of their Ecclesiastical Guides, are to judge for themselves what they are to believe or to practice in Religion. 'It is very sure also, that the Non-conformists, in imitation of a Challenge made by Dr. Jewel, one of our first Reformers, unto the Romish Clergy, upon their unjust imputation of Novelty unto the Reformation, have published a Challenge in such Terms as these.

And none hath answered it.

§. 8. If the Reader will accept the Report and Judgment of a Non-conformist, concerning the condition of the Church in the English Nation at the time of the Reformation, it must be thus. The God of Heaven having sent the light of the Gospel into the Minds of the King and some that were his chief Counselors, disposing them to the Reformation, they found it a business incredibly difficult for them to encounter the inveterate and incurable prejudices with which Mankind were generally possessed, against the work by them desired and intended. The greatest part of the greater Men, the Nobles and the Gentry, were averse to the proceedings of the Reformers; the most of the Clergy were so true unto their own carnal Interests, that with might and main they opposed those Proceedings; and the body of the People horribly blinded with Superstition and Profanity, were easily Priest-ridden, to join with their blind Leaders in their troublesome oppositions: Nor were the Nations in the Neighbourhood left uninstigated by the Pope, to foment the discontents of the People on this occasion. The body of the People were those which in these difficulties the King most of all regarded, knowing, that they were his Wealth and Strength, and that without their concurrence the Dissatisfactions of all others would hurt none but themselves. Now the People in those days being miserably unacquainted with the Doctrine of the Scripture, were very little or nothing at all concerned, what persuasions Men held in matters of pure belief, provided they might retain those Rites and Modes in their Worship, whereto they had been accustomed. Accordingly we know, that the Prelates who carried on the Papal Persecution against the Reformers, rarely, if ever, unless compelled by Disputations, mentioned the Opinions about the Credenda of Doctrine, as the grounds of the Quarrel, though these were the main grounds of all; because the common People would not have been easily prevailed withal, to bring in Faggots for the burning of their Brethren on those more abstruse accounts: but it was in the agenda of Worship, that they wisely stated the cause of all their Cruelty, because they saw that the common People would violently interpose on the behalf of the Mass, wherein their share of Religion chiefly lay.

Our considerate Reformers, considering the disposition of the People, first of all, with a brave Resolution, asserted the true Doctrine of the Gospel, and renounced the Errors and Follies with which the Antichristian Apostasy had envenom'd it: but then they attempered the way of public Worship as far as ever the Articles of their Faith would permit them (if no further) unto that which the Populace had been used unto. It was a thing very sensible unto them, that so long as ths People were accommodated with as much conformity as might be unto their former customs in Divine Service, the main Reformation in Doctrine, which ('twas hoped) would at length introduce a Reformation in Worship also, might go on with less Observation, and consequently with less Contestation. And the Priests finding a provision thus made for their continuance in the possession of their Places, without anything further prescribed, but what was as easy to be performed as anything that had been practiced in former days, would quietly let their betters go on with what they had undertaken. On these considerations the English Liturgy was formed, and the Book of Common-Prayer thus composed, became from the very beginning a bone of Contention in the Church of God. Many that were enlightened with such rays of Truth, as had irradiated the chief Instruments of the Reformation, utterly decried this compliance with the ignorance and vanity of the People, and cried out earnestly for purer Administrations of Evangelical Ordinances, agreeable to the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the examples of Primitive Christianity; whilst others would not hear of going any farther than that first Essay of Reformation. Only, a long experience hath made it evident, that the more the knowledge of the Gospel hath increased in the Nation, the more hath increased the dislike of the Liturgy and its Appurtenances: nor can the Liturgy with its unscriptural and unprofitable Discipline, be secured, without an extirpation of hundreds of thousands of as good Christians as any in the Land, yea, and of the very Bibles that have made them so; which, if any are so wicked as to imagine, let them know, Aliter statutum est in coelo!

But, Reader! because it is a lubricous and a difficult Theme which we are now upon, thou shalt not have my Sense of these matters imposed upon thee; I will carry thee with me to more significant and sufficient informers, even those Historians who were no Non-conformists, but lived and died in the fullest Conformity to the Rites of the Church of England as by Law established; and thou shalt have thy choice to take thy information either from an Historian, that was an enemy to any further progress of the Reformation, or from an Historian to whom such a progress in the Reformation as the first mover thereof designed, would not have been so distasteful; that is to say, either from an HEYLIN, or from a FULLER.

Let a bitter HEYLIN, in his History of the Reformation of the Church of England, be consulted, and he will tell us;

These and many more such things as these are affirmed, by that Heylin, who, though for his Divinity, the most Reverend Archbishop Usher says, He had need be put to learn his Catechism again; and for his Geography, the same Archbishop says, He deserves little credit, when he brings us news from the remote parts of the World, that tells us so many untruths of things publicly acted in his neighbor Nation: Yet in these Paragraphs of his History, is incontestable.

But how let us consult a better, FULLER; and he, in his Church-History of Britain, will tell us:

And so truly he did! The King, who had once professed unto a National Assembly of the Kirk in Scotland,

did now set himself to harrie out of the Land, the People who could not conform to that Service in England. The Persecutions used upon the Nonconformists, under his and the Successors influence, proceeded so far, that Multitudes of them at length sought quiet Recesses in an American Wilderness.

But that in the Mouth of at least three Witnesses, our account about the degree of Reformation, designed by some, and obstructed by others, may be established, we will to these Quotations, add the Testimony of Dr. Gilbert Burnet, who in his printed Letters, affirms, That in his Travels he had opportunity at Zurich to read a volume of the Letters that passed between Bullinger, and several of our great Reformers, the Originals whereof were laid up among the Archives there:

And if the Reader will further consult the History of the Reformation, written by that learned Man, he will find, Yea he will find, But if the Confessions which the most conformable Sons of the Church have thus made concerning the various disposition of men and things in the Reformation, be not satisfactory; Reader, take the pains to peruse the Story, which Cambden, another of them, has given us concerning the Steps which Queen Elizabeth took in the Reformation; how many of the Popish Rites were by slow degrees rejected, and how many were still retained through her fondness for them: a Story too long to be in this place repeated. And add thereunto the Testimony of one, who was friend enough unto Prelacy, in his Letter to Hooker about writing his Ecclesiastical Policy; Unto such incontestible Authors do I still confine myself, being terrified by the words of Mr. Baxter, who says,

§. 9 From this time, Reader, Behold the Church of England miserably beschism'd into Guelph and Gibelline! After this, What will ye see in the Church of England? As it were the company of two Armies.

On the one side [Alas, thou wretched word, SIDE, wilt crowd into all our History, and be a word essential to all the History of the whole World, until the third Chapter of Genesis be superseded by the three last Chapters of the Revelation! ] I say on the one side, there hath been a great Body of Men, desirous to enjoy for themselves, and allow and assert for others, the Liberty of Men; and at the same time, to have the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, preserved inviolable: They desire, That the Reformation of Religion should be carried on in the Steps, and by the Rules which the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking from the Oracle of the Sacred Scripture, hath directed; and they believe there is a PLUS ULTRA, which the great Work begun, and but begun in the last Age, is not yet arrived unto: They desire that the Qualifications for the Pastoral Office, and for Communion in all the special Ordinances of the Church, be no other than what the Lord Jesus Christ hath in his Word required: They desire, That the Civil Magistrate should be entrusted with a Power to regulate, according to the word of God, any disorder in the Church, that shall have a direct influence on the State; and they confess thus far, a National Church Government; only they would have it recognized as no more than an Human and a Civil Policy circa Sacra. If there must be Bishops, they cannot acknowledge them to have any Title unto their Dignities, but what is Human and Civil, conferred by the King upon them, whose alone Officers they are, circa Sacra, (nor indeed was the Jure Divino -ship hereof ever until the Days of King James the First pretended unto; but we are sure, that even a Convocation in the days of King Henry the Eighth declared,

They desire that Parochial or Congregational Assemblies, may be acknowledged as particular Churches, and permitted the Rights of Churches, who may from the Pastors of their own choosing, have all the Ordinances of the Gospel, with the Primitive Discipline administered, and have it left unto their own choice, whether they will herein have a Liturgy or no among them: They desire, That conscientious Dissenters from established Rites, may not be compelled, and harassed, and ruined with Civil Penalties, for the scruples of their tender Consciences; but, that Evangelical Methods of Conviction be the only ones employ'd upon them: and finally, they desire, That no illegal, despotick, and arbitrary Government may be imposed upon the brave English Nation: LIBERTY and PROPERTY is their cognizance. To avoid Circumlocutions, I will take the liberty to put upon the Side thus described, a name that shall carry their desired Liberty in the signification of it; I will call them ELEUTHERIANS: And if the Story of our King Lucius, the first Christian King they say in the World, were certain, we would respect the name the more, for that famous old Eleutherius, who thought that the Faith of Christ, and the Old and New Testament, without any Additions from Rome, was Law enough to govern the Church of England. Now among these our ELEUTHERIANS, or Freemen, are to be reckoned, not only the hundreds of thousands that have actually shaken off the Shackles of Conformity to the Popish Remainders yet vexing of England, but those also that have lived in conformity, yet groaning, or at least willing to have the heavy Yoke taken off; yea, I am not sure that the biggest part of the Conformable themselves, will not be found of this number. Such an one ( Reader, I will not quote one, but what, if I mistake not, was a conformable Son of the Church ) I say, such a one was Doctor Jewell, when he wrote, Such was Mr. Deering, when he wrote, Such was Dr. Pilkington, when he wrote, Such was Dr. Bilson, when he wrote, Such was Dr. Humphry, when he wrote, Such was Dr. Fulk, when he wrote, Such was Dr. More, when he wrote, To have done: Such was Mr. Chillingworth, whose emphatical Words are these; And what but such were those Episcopal Divines, who with Dr. Usher presented unto the Parliament above thirty Exceptions against the Liturgy? I will descend no lower, I will produce no more; here is enough to explain one side of the English Controversies.

On the other side; there hath been a prevailing Party, whose Grief it hath been, that ever the Reformation proceeded so far, and whose Wrath hath been on all occasions vented against the Memory of those that were chief in the Reformation. Reader, call them not that Church of England, which is the Spouse of Christ; but let the name of LOT's WIFE be assigned unto them, and let them upon good advice remember her. These IDUMAEANS would monopolize unto themselves the name of the Church of England; but they have by Canons boldly invading of, and contrary to the Parliamentary Power, formed a new Church of England, which for more than half an hundred years after the Reformation, towould have been little short of Treason to have talked of. They have made their Church-Government, by Arch-Bishops, Bishops, Deans, Arch-Deacons, and the rest that bear Office in the Church, a thing of Divine Right; but then they durst not show their Head: for, from the King they now derive not their Episcopal Authority, as they did at the beginning: Their Eye is upon a foreign Jurisdiction! They have made no more than twenty six particular Churches, namely the Diocesan, in the whole Kingdom; and with a prodigious Impudence they dare to publish it, Inauditus erat parochorum pastoratus ante hujus seculi, & antecedentis Delirium; and blotting out the name of Pastor, where their Books formerly so called the Parish-Presbyter, they have left unto none, but the twenty six Bishops, either Obligation to teach, or Authority to rule in the Church. They have been mere Bigots for trifling Ceremonies; and if they could but cozen Men into a Belief, that it was a brave piece of devotion, to have a Church set off (like that of Durham, described by Dr. Fuller ) with an Altar and Cherubims, which cost two thousand Pounds, and an Image of the Trinity, and Anthems of the three Kings of Collen, to be sung instead of Psalms, before and after Sermon, and a consecrated Knife to cut the Bread at the Communion, and abundance more of such Trinkets, they have seemed as if they cared not, though the Substantials of the Christian Religion were utterly lost in the Nation. All the Doctrines of Grace, asserted by the true Church of England, these men do first Subscribe them, and then Preach and Print against them, and with these, if a man would be preferred, he must be a Pelagian. Lest Christianity should be consistent with Conformity, these men also are they that once invented a Proclamation for Sports on the Lord's Day, as an Engine to vex the best Christians among the Conformists, and fill the Land with Paganism and Atheism: And this in spite of the Homilies of the Church of England, which damned them for doing so. They have exacted from the Clergy, an Assent and Consent unto everything in the Book of Common-Prayer, the Book of Consecrating Bishops, and Ordering Priests and Deacons, and the Book of Articles and Homilies; and the Clergy are to declare, That they will never endeavor any Alteration of the Ecclesiastical Constitution; yea, to Vow and Swear that they will observe all the Canons. By these Canons,

With these men (to quote still none but Conformable Authors for everything, Reader, now 'tis one Hickringale, and no Nonconformist, that is my Voucher) A pretended hatred against Popery, is nothing but a Colour wherewith Hypocrisy hath still painted the ugly face of hatred and malice against the Conscientious. While these men can assert the Salvation of Heathens, they cannot allow an Indulgence to Christians: And though they Blaspheme it as a Tyranny for the Almighty to Punish men for what they cannot help, they themselves very Tyrannically practice it. These Men, being by Divine Providence made capable for the most part very much to influence the Legislative Power, have procured those Laws to be Enacted against Conscientious Dissenters, a mere Abstract whereof, were enough to fill many Pages, well deserving the Title of Draconica; Laws, which gave the Earl of Castlemain, a Papist, cause to say in Print, In the Execution of those Laws, wherein What three Volumes of Martyrology in Folio could enumerate the unaccountable Oppressions used upon the best Christians in the Nation? While at the same time the most Ungodly Wretches of all sorts, and the scoffers and haters of all Godliness, have been encouraged as the truest Sons of the Church: Persons of Caesar Borgia 's Qualifications can live in the Communion of the Church, with these men, under all manner of encouragement; while the most serious Piety, exemplified in all manner of Conversation, could not secure those that scrupled any of their pitiful Ceremonies, from as cruel Censures as ever the Wolf and the Fox, which in the ancient Apologue, Absolved one another from the guilt of their confessed Villanies, passed upon the poor Ass for touching the Pilgrims pad of Straw. Nor could Conformity neither, secure the seriously Religious from the rage of that Spirit whereby these men have been acted; but as it is expressed and complained by Dr. Wallis, a Conformable Divine, (for indeed, Reader, in these matters I durst not quote a Nonconformist) with such as these, if any man press for Regeneration, Sanctification, and an holy life, he was to pass heretofore for a Puritan, then for a Round-head, now for a damned Fanatick; nor shall he escape this censure, though he be never so great a Churchman, and do exactly conform to the Church, as now by Law Established; for 'tis Holiness they hate more than Noncoformity. Yea, no less Persons than the Lord's of the Council have been put upon, signifying with grief under their hands, unto an Archbishop, That a great number of Ministers (conformable enough) zealous and learned Preachers; have been Deprived and Suspended, and their Places left without any Ministry or Preaching, Prayers and Sacraments; or certain Persons appointed unto those void Rooms, who were Persons neither of Learning nor of good Names; yea, a great number notoriously unfit, chargeable with Ignorance, and with great enormous Faults, as Drunkenness, Filthiness of life, Gaming at Cards, haunting of Ale-houses, and such like; against whom we hear not of any Proceeding, but that they are quietly suffered, to the slander of the Church, to the offense of good People; yea, to the Famishing of them for want of good Teaching. This is that Faction who publish unto Mankind their Spirit in such Language as this, That they abhor being a Papist as much as being a Presbyterian, and that they will as soon be Turks as be either of them. What shall I say more? In the Church they have broken down the Form of Churches which our Lord Jesus Christ Instituted; they have deposed his Officers; they have destroyed his Offices; they have laid aside his Rules of Government; they have set up New things of their own quite opposite unto His: Yet they lay claim to all the Privileges of His; and all this they do in his name; which is an Iniquity extraordinarily aggravated, extraordinarily complicated! In the State what they have done shall not be reported in any words of mine; but, Ex ore tuo, Serve Nequam. They have taught, with Manwayring, That the King, without common Consent in Parliament, could by his Command so far bind the Subject to say Taxes, that they cannot refuse the Payment of them without Peril of eternal Damnation; and that the Authority of Parliament was not necessary to the raising of Subsidies. They have Taught, with Heylin, Princes are God's Deputies; Of whom should they be limited? If you say by the Laws of the Land; those themselves have made, Principi Lex non est posita; They are above the Law and have an Absolute Authority. They have Taught with Lesley, That Princes being God's Legislators, are above their Laws, and Dispense with them as they think expedient. They have Taught with Wemius, In Monarchiâ, Regis sola voluntas, de substantiâ Legis est; praevia populi Consultatio, non est Necessaria. They have Taught, as a later Meteor in the English Heavens hath Illuminated us; That as well Inferior Magistrates, as others, employed by a Popish or Tyrannical Prince, in the most illegal and outrageous acts of Violence, such as Cutting of Throats, and the like, are Irresistible, and must be submitted to under pain of eternal Damnation. Yea, that the Note may be carried high enough unto all their fulsome Idolatry of their Charles the First, they have added the Blasphemy of calling him CHRIST the Second: And one Parker in a Treatise of Religion and Loyalty, published 1684, thus expressed himself; It is but a Crude expression, not to call it Profane (because it is so common by customary mistake) to affirm that Kings are Supreme Governors under Christ: They are and ever were so, under God, but so as to be Superior to Christ, as Christ is Head of the Church within their Dominions. I am already weary of Transcribing their Tantivee stuff, and will conclude it with the words of one that is a Conformable Son of the Church, [for still I durst not quote a Nonconformist ] who says, Non-Resistence and Passive Obedience, were the only Orthodox and Catholic Doctrines, so long as they imagined it would never come unto their own turn to practice them. When the men of this stamp had once gained the Prince on their side, and to espouse their Interest, they have endeavored to requite him by ascribing to him an Absolute Power, and Illimited Authority over the Subject; though none winc'd sooner, nor kicked higher at it, when they themselves began to feel the dint of it. I shall proceed no farther in Anatomizing this Carcase of a Church: Pope Boniface VIII. threatened a Thunderbolt of Excommunication against every Physician that should venture to do the part of an Anatomist; and I have already employed my Knife so far in my Dissections, that certain Canons made by as good Authority as Boniface 's, have ipso facto Excommunicated me.

I called them IDUMAEANS; because whether we consider their contempt of what every Right Christian, and every Right Englishman values as his Birth-right; or consider the Bloody Rage with which they came out against their Brethren, who in some sort have been Twins with them, they will appear to us the true Sons of Edom; and because they may read more than they are aware of their own Fate, if they will please to consult the Prophecies in the ancient Oracles of Heaven about the Edomites; to the sense of which Prophecies, I remember there is a notable Key given us by the Jewish Rabbies, על רגמי אמרו, Of ROME have they spoken it. But they like not their Scripture Name, let them still keep their old Right English Name of UNREFORMABLES.

§. 10. No less a man than Sir Francis Walsingham, in his account of the Severities used by Queen Elizabeth against the Puritans, (a Nick-name devised first by Sanders the Jesuit, for the best men in the Kingdom, and by the worst ever after put upon them) confesses, That when they resolved (at last) to carry on their designs, without waiting for the consent of the Magistrate, upon that the Queen found it necessary to restrain them. And Cambden [one far from a Nonconformist ] is our Author for it, That Queen Elizabeth advancing Whitgift unto the See of Canterbury, above all commanded him to re-establish the Discipline of the Church of England, that as then lay dismembered by the connivency of Prelates, the obstinacy of Innovators, and the power of some great ones; whilst some Ministers utterly condemned the Liturgy, and the appointed manner of Administring the Sacraments, as being in many things contrary to the Scripture. Nor is it unknown that the proceedings of Whitgift hereupon, were such as to procure him from the Lord Treasurer Burleigh a Letter dated, July 5. 1584. wherein he tells him, I think the Inquisitors of Spain use not so many Questions to trap their Preys: This kind of Proceeding is too much savouring the Romish Inquisition. The terrible Persecution which afterwards followed upon the Nonconformists, would be too long and sad a Story to be in this place largely related: Afflicti Suppliciis Puritani, Genus Hominum, [Forsooth!] Superstitionis Novae & Maleficae! Mr. Cotton, in a Book Printed Anno 1647. Writes, That there was then in New-England a Fourth Volume of the Books of Martyrs in Manuscript beginning, where Mr. Fox left off, and containing the Sufferings of Godly men (and Mr. Fox himself, perhaps one of them) from the Enemies of the Reformation, for their expressing their desires to have it further carried on. But Mr. Cotton being a Nonconformist, I must fly presently to a more Conformable Author; it shall be old Bishop Morton, who earnestly urged the Puritans to be as Conformable as himself, with such wonderful words as these; I ought not to esteem anything a just cause of Silencing myself from Preaching, for which I ought not as willingly to venture my life. The Nonconformist have suffered what is next to Death, and too many have suffered even unto Death in Prisons, where several caught their Death, and others Died; Of whom shall their Deaths be required? And I suppose the Puritans then knew how to retort upon this Reverend Bishop, his own words; Not of our own selves, Doctor! (might they have said) but of you, that would venture to Silence good men, and even to take away their lives, for things for which you thought they should not venture their lives. All Mankind then saw no less than Three hundred Ministers (whom the most Learned Parker compares to the Three hundred Soldiers of Gideon) all of them in one particular storm Deprived of their Ministry and their Maintenance, because they could not Subscribe to some unlawful Impositions. No less a man than Sir Edward Dearing, in the most August Assembly under Heaven, could then complain, With the Papists there is a severe Inquisition, and with us a bitter High Commission. Yea, the Book Entituled, The Register of memorable Matters touching the Reformation, records a Story about a Congregation of an Hundred Persons who refused the Liturgy, and had the purer Ordinances of the Gospel among themselves, in the Year 1567. for which they Suffered not a little. And after what fashion some of these Confessors were handled in those days, the Reader shall understand, Crimine ab uno, which I find (reported by a Conformist ) thus;

Reader, 'tis a kind of Inhumanity to relate such horrible things; what hath been related is enough to make way for the passage that must now follow thereupon. To undergo much Poverty and Misery, with daily fears of Massacre from Indian Salvages, in a bleak Region, a Thousand Leagues from ones own Country, is a sad condition; but if the Liberties of the Gospel may be had with it, the condition was by some Thousands of Good men judged not so sad and so hard, as that of being in the Griping Talons of Archbishop LAUD. Certainly Mankind will not now wonder at it, That a Number of Nonconformists chose to fly into a Wilderness, where they might Peaceably erect Evangelical Churches, and pursue the Designs of a Scriptural Reformation, and enjoy the Spiritual Blessings of a Reformed State, rather than both feel and give the Disturbance whereto the Differences here at home exposed them. An American Wilderness, now known by the Name of NEW-ENGLAND, was on this occasion, between the Years 1620 and 1640, Peopled with Evangelical Churches, by such as were driven out of the Realm of England through the Persecutions of Ceremony-Mongers, that ever were, and ever will be Enemies to all the true Interests of the Nation.

§. 11. 'It is true, That the Party in the Church of England, which hates to be Reformed, hath, for the most part, through I know not what Advantages, hitherto been Uppermost. And hence not only the Reformation of Discipline, which was only commenced in the former Age, hath ever since been stopped, but also the Reformation of Doctrine, in the very Essential Points of the Grace of God, then completed, has been in danger to be utterly lost. When the Church first Rose from the Grave of the Antichristian Apostasy, wherein she had so long been Buried, she had, like Lazarus, her Grave Cloaths hanging about her; but this Party have with a success equal to their fervor, and a fervor equal to their folly, endeavored still to keep upon her those Monuments of her former Misery. For Discipline, they have still been in the humor of those Islanders, who held it an Impiety to sweep a Room after it had contracted the Dust of Three Generations; and when the Word of Christ hath been urged with never so much of Irresistible, and Incontestable Evidence by them who thirsted after a better Order; there hath still been little better Answer given, than what the Prolocutor of the Convocation Silenced Philpot withal, You have the Word, and we have the Sword. But an old Observation, in the Homilies of the Church of England, hath been too much verified in the Practies of them that would be called so, That such hath been the corrupt Inclination of man, Superstitiously given to make new Honouring of God of his own Head, and then to have more Affection and Devotion to keep that, than to search out God's Holy Commandments and to do them. For Doctrine, 'tis well known that Hundreds of thousands of Romanists at this day, distinguished by the Name of Jansenists, are Sounder in many Essential and Fundamental Points of the Christian Faith, than many that have Subscribed our most Orthodox Articles of the Church of England, and then pretend them to be Articles not of Faith, but of Peace: Or else the famous Letter to the Rector of Brussels had never brag'd, Now we have planted that Sovereign Drug, Arminianism, which we hope will purge the Protestants from their Heresy; and it flourisheth and bears fruit in due Season. The Learned Bullialdus, I remember, speaks of a Florentine Physician, whom all the Friends he had could not persuade so much as once to view the Heavens through a Telescope, and the unreasonable man gave this reason for his refusal, Because he was afraid that then his Eyes would from Ocular Demonstrations, make him stagger concerning the truth of Aristotle 's Principles, which he was resolved he would never call in Question. Our Unreformable Churchmen seem to have been as much afraid of bringing Ecclesiastical Matters under a fair Examination by the Scriptures of Truth, lest they should plainly see with their Eyes, a necessity of Proceeding to further measures of Reformation. When an English Parliament was but bringing in a Bill against Pluralities, that eternal Scandal of Christianity, the Archbishop Whitgift, writes to the Queen with as much distress as if they were all going to be Martyred at the Stake; The woeful and distressed Estate (saith he) whereinto we are likely to fall, forceth us, with grief of Heart, in most humble manner, to crave Your Majesty's most Sovereign Protection: We beseech Your Highness's favorable beholding of our present State, and what it will be in time, if the Bill against Pluralities should take place. And when the Parliament was bringing in a Bill against another of the Abuses then Oppressing of Mankind, he complains to the Queen with hideous Lamentations, That it would tend to the Dishonor of the Church, as having hitherto maintained an Error. Then 'twas that the great Zanchi (in the Year 1571.) Addressed Queen Elizabeth for an Abatement of the unhappy Ceremonies, concluding, It is to be feared that the Fire is so kindled, and casteth its flames so far and wide, that all the Churches of Your most mighty Kingdom, to the most perpetual Disgrace of Your most Renowned Majesty, will be set on flaming fire. But the sense of the Reformed Churches beyond Sea, thus expressed by the great Light of Heidelburg, would not be regarded until indeed all came to be set on a flame of Fire. Then 'twas that the Reverend John Fox entered into his Martyrology, his complaints about those Baits of Popery, and his wishes, God take them away, or ease us from them, for God knows they be the cause of much Blindness and Strife amongst men. But the unhappy causes of Blindness and Strife have still continued, until they have produced matter enough to fill another Martyrology. After what fashion the Church hath since those times jogg'd on with the old Mumpsimus's, I had rather the Pen of a Conformist than mine should relate; and let such a Pen ['tis the Witty Marvel 's] now observe it unto us;

Upon the Restoration of King Charles the Second, there was a singular opportunity for the Reformation to have gained, at least, as much Establishment as was promised in that King's Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs; a Declaration whereof a Divine of the Church of England could say, If ever a Divine Sentence was in the mouth of a King, it was with His Majesty, in that admirable Declaration; and the united Judgment of the whole Nation, cannot frame a more unexceptionable expedient for a firm Concord of these distracted Churches. But this Declaration was immediately of as little regard, as the Solemn League and Covenant. Though there were then a Conference about those Affairs, between the Episcopal and the Nonconformist Divines, by the King's Commission, such was the event, that I still choose to give the Story in the very words of a Conformist; And that the Story may be yet a little more perfect, the words of another Conformist shall be adjoined;

Then it was that the Parliament, since known by the Name of Pensioner, were so Priest-ridden as to Enact those horrid Laws for Ceremonies, by which the Magna Charta of the Nation was torn to pieces; Millions of Perjuries filled the Land; the most brutish of men were hired to do the most brutish of things; Convictions were made, and Penalties were laid, not only without Juries, but also without any hearing of the Accused; Estates were Seized and Embezzel'd; Houses were broke up and disturbed; Families were scattered and ruined; the Prisons were filled with the most serious Christians; and Reverend Ministers of the Gospel sent unto the Stocks and the Houses of Correction all over the Kingdom, for nothing but because their Consciences could not Conform to sinful Ceremonies, which in the Judgment of the Imposers were but Indifferent. Thus Edom did pursue his Brother with the Sword, and cast off all pity; his Anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever; till God sent a Fire upon them. I have read concerning Zoroaster 's Book, Entitled The Similitude, That it required no less than Twelve hundred and sixty Ox Hides for the covering of it. I know not how far the full Story of the Sufferings of the Nonconformists under the Caroline Persecution would go to fill a Book of such enormous Dimensions; this I know, 'twas a Persecution too terrible to admit of a Similitude; and there is a worthy Writer who does not scruple to say, That if the Sufferings of Good men in this Persecution were distinctly written, our largest Books of Martyrs would be but an Enchiridion in comparison of this History. At length to be revenged upon them for their Joining, as they always did, with the Sober part of the Nation against the Popish Plot, there fell upon them the Storm, which not only cost many of them their Lives, but also utterly dissipated their Congregations. Their Adversaries then kept a Day of Thanksgiving through the Kingdom; and in this doleful state they lay Three Years and an half; even till the Laws, which some think were made by no Authority, received either from God or Man, came strangely (and at last fairly) to be removed. Since the most happy Accession of Their Majesty's, King William and (the late) Queen Mary, to the Throne of the Three Kingdoms, the opportunity to Prosecute the Reformation hath been wonderfully renewed and increased, not only in the readiness which those excellent Princes have shewn in many instances to Relieve the Oppressed Consciences of the Protestant Dissenters, but also in their earnest calling upon the Clergy of the English Nation to prepare and offer Things for the good Order, Edification, and Unity of the Church of England, and the Reconciling as much as is possible, all Differences among the good Subjects, and to take away all occasions of the like for the future. Nevertheless we cannot learn that any great matter hath hitherto been done by them, to answer the expectation of the Best of Princes; but excepting the Indulgence granted unto the Nonconformists by an Act of Parliament, all things remain so much in the old posture, as to produce this Complaint of a worthy Person, one Mr. Snowden, who is yet a Conformable Son of the Church — Ever since the Reformation (saith he) the Church hath suffered many a bitter pang for the sake of these Offensive Rites and Ceremonies: They once fretted out her Bowels, and have been, ever since their Restoration with Charles the Second, as Moths fretting her Garments: They have been the constant Troublers of our Israel; and I am afraid, if, with Jonas they be not cast overboard, they will at one time or another sink our Ship. After these multiplied and emphatical Overtures, there comes forth unto the World, a Vox Cleri, which instead of consenting unto the Abatement of any one Apocryphal Ingredient in Divine Worship, does propose the Addition of more, and the Appointment of Reading sometimes in the Church for the further Enlightening of our Understanding, certain Portions out of ΕΙΚΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ; [about the true Author of which Book, the Earl of Anglesey, and (a Conformable Divine) the Reverend Dr. Anthony Walker, and not I, must be an Informer unto as many as would be truly informed]; and unto this Proposal of our Vox Cleri, not I, but one who called himself, A sober Lay-man of the Church of England, hereupon Publishing a Vox Populi, hath answered, And why not the Arcadian Prayer in the same Book, for the furthering of our Devotions? What shall we say more? If neither the Commands of Christ, nor the Judgments of God, nor the Arguments of the strongest Reason, with the long Experience of above an Hundred and fifty Years Nonsense in Impositions and Persecutions, have not persuaded us to make a more thorough Reformation; one would think that the Derision, which for the want of it, we have had from the Papist, themselves, whom it has been our pretence therein to accommodate, might have carried some little persuasion in it. Reader, unto them that are most concerned, let us leave the Translation of a very pungent Passage, which Edward Weston hath, in his Theatrum Vitae Civilis & Sacrae, Printed at Antwerp.

Alii Protestants, ne prorsus Impii videantur, nostris Missali, ac Breviario, cum suo delectu utuntur. Et quo Religions apud eos Forma celebrior appareat, adh • bent Canonicos, etiam, si diis placet, & Archidiachonos. Adcoque de More Ecclesiae Romanae Eorum Cappas, pluvialia & ejusdem Supellectiiem, quam dicunt invenisse in Synagoga Antichristi. Quo ipso liquet, Religionem Protestantium imprimis Furto noxiam — vel si Fu •• s haberi r • cu • ant, maneant Simiae nostrae, & Antichristi. Ridentur hi, cum omni suâ Scenâ, non à nostris modo, verùm & à suis: And then he adds the saying of one, Videntur Angli Papam à suo Regno fugâsse adeo festine, ut eum Coegerint vestes à Tergo relinquere; quibus isti, Ovantium Ritu Choros ducentes, induuntur personati. But none of all these considerations hath hitherto moved the Predominant Party; nor have these true Sons of Austin the Monk, taken any other methods to recommend themselves unto the Nonconformists, than that old Formal and Foolish Monk took to push the Papal Ceremonies upon those ancient Churches of Nonconformists, our British Ancestors. The Church of England, in the beginning of the Commination against Sinners, does confess, That her Discipline is not so good as that of the Primitive Churches was for several Ages. And no Commination of our Lord Jesus Christ against the Unreformable, has caused them to lay aside their sinful Resolution, That it never shall be so. The Reformation when carried but half through, immediately stuck like an Inchanted Cart, and if by any driving that hath made the tackling all fly, it hath been strained beyond the Line, where the Spell was first laid upon it, it hath soon resil'd within that Line again with a Vengeance. Mow to use (which on this Theme (still choose) the words of a Conformable Writer, Is it not strange [saith the Conformable Author of a Plea for Abatement] to observe that in the Reformation of Religion, there should be so great a sally out of Darkness into marvelous Light upon the first dawning of that Day, and that notwithstanding all the Prayers and Tears of Oppressed Consciences, and the utmost endeavors of our Learned Fathers, it could not for more than this Hundred Years, be carried on one step further towards perfection?

§. 12. Thus it must be, because an Half time of the Twelve hundred and sixty years, determined for the continuance of the Apostasy, was yet behind. But now, lift up your heads ye Reforming Churches of God, because Redemption draweth nigh. The Hundred and fourscore years are almost out; and then an irresistible Spirit of REFORMATION showered from the Lord Jesus Christ on the Hearts of men, shall bring mighty and happy Changes upon the World. He doth great things by Spirit, and, Lord, I know that thou canst do everything. The Sacred Oracles of Heaven assign Two steps to be taken for the abolishing of Antichrist: First an Harvest, and then a Vintage: Our Lord had a notable Harvest of Churches gathered out of the Papal Empire at the Reformation in the former Century; but the Harvest leaves no little work for the Vintage, which always comes about a Seventh part of the Year after it. Now the Seventh part of the Twelve hundred and sixty years, which constitute the grand year of Antichrist, is just an Hundred and fourscore Years; and about so many Years from the Reformation, we shall see Popery cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. But because in this Thorny Argument I have still chosen to say all in words whereto the Conformable Sons of the Church of England have helped me, I will here choose to sum up my expectations in the words of such an one; for such an one I find in the Year 1690, publicly thus expressing himself; It is the hope of many Good and Learned men, that the time is at hand when God will deliver his Church forever from the darkness of the Kingdom of Antichrist; and that the Nations will cast away all things that have been Instruments of advancing his Tyranny and Superstition; surely that glorious Day will open men's Eyes; I have the faith to believe, that England will not be blind when other Nations do see. And long before him, I find another of them, namely, Dr. More saying, What harm is it to presage so well of the Reformation, as that after the Decursion of the years of their Childhood, God will ripen them into a more manly sense of the great and indispensable Duties of the Gospel; That he will not tolerate nor connive any longer at their childish squabling about Nutshels, Counters, and Cherry-stones; but menace them even with Destruction, if they leave not off their Animosities and Asperities of mind about Trifles, and hold not fast unto the Royal Law of Love? I would reproach my Hand, if I did not find it even to tremble in Transcribing the terrible words of the Famous Mr. Baxter, who hath Published this Prognostication: I think it exceeding probable, that either England will have Popery settled in Power by a French Conquest, in the French Fashion, by the Compliance of those of the English Clergy, who are for a Foreign Church-Jurisdiction, or else God will constrain the present Governors, by the sense of their own Interest, if not of the Interest of Religion and the common Good, to open the public Church-doors unto that Concord, against which they have been locked by the Act of Uniformity, and such like, above Thirty Years; and the unplacable Enemies of Peace will cast down themselves. The former part of this terrible Prognostication, how probable soever the Sins of men have rendered it, we may hope shall by the Sovereign Mercy of Heaven be prevented; but the latter part of it, shall by the Almighty Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, working on the Hearts of men, however not without an amazing shake once more not only of the Earth, but of the Heavens also, be speedily and gloriously accomplished.

It would indeed make a Volume to recite all the hopeful passages of a true ELEUTHERIAN strain, which we find occurring in the Books of late Years, written by many Conformable Sons of the Church of England. Now because I am going to predict the Language, which will be heard through the Nation, when a wonderful Revolution shall irresistibly bring on the heretofore maligned, and hitherto opposed Reformation; and Good men will write in all their Books, what was the Motto written by Selueccerus in all of his, ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΝΤΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΕΛΕΓΘΕΡΙΑΝ. Above all things for LIBERTY. I am willing first of all to repeat a little of that Language, which I find in the Writings of the Conformable. Reader, Shall we go so high as the very Reverend old Robert Abbot the Bishop of Salisbury, whose Two Younger Brothers, one became Archbishop of Canterbury, the other became Lord-Mayor of London? This great man, when Doctor of the Chair in the University of Oxford [1615.] thus expressed himself;

But I spoke of coming to the late Years, and I will do it as fast as I can. 'It is Bishop Davenant, who says,

'It is Bishop Taylor who says,

'It is Mr. Hales (one as worthy to have been a Bishop as Archbishop Laud ) who says,

'It is Dr. Fuller (one as worthy of a Bishopric too as any other) who says,

'It is Bishop Stillingfleet, who says (though he were not a Bishop when he said it)

Once more,

'It is the Bishop of Hereford, who says,

'It is the Protestant Reconciler (a faithful Son of the Church of England, as one calls him) who says,

'It is the Reverend Mr. Samuel Bolde, who says,

Why should I quote the Four Books, Entitled, The Conformists Plea for the Nonconformists, which were Composed by a Beneficed Minister, and Regular Son of the Church of England, and exposed in the Years 1681, 1682, 1683? Unto these, if I should add all that occurs in the several Arguments humbly Proposed for Concessions and Alterations in the Common-Prayer, and in the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England (with numberless Quotations from Conformable Authors therein made) published by a Minister of the Church of England, as by Law Established, in the Year 1689. Some fierce IDUMAEAN would say, I am raising an Army of Moderate Conformists against his Violent Party. And yet I must presume to Cite a few Lines out of the Author last mentioned: Says he,

Lest my Reader should grow weary [and yet who can be weary! ] of being entertained with too long a Repetition of the true ELEUTHERIAN Language, to be found in the Books of many Conformable Writers, I will only Extract a few Lines from Two more of those Writers, who yet have not prefixed their Names unto their Works; and it is a shame to the Nation, that men who write so well, should find it necessary, for the avoiding of Envy, to write Anonymously.

It was in the Year 1690, that one Conformable Divine [whose Name, I hear, is Mr. Graves ] Published a Discourse on the Vanity, Mischief, and Danger of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God: And now see what he says;

Thus he.

It was in the Year 1693. That another Conformable Divine [whose Name as I am informed is Mr. Snowden ] Published a Discourse for Abatement in Matters of Conformity to several Injunctions and Orders of the Church of England. See what he says:

Thus, Reader, I am so far from able to brag, with old Epicurus, of not having in all my Writings Quoted any one single Authority out of any Book whatsoever, that (although I have not, as Pineda did in his Monarchia Ecclesiastica, Cited One thousand and forty Authors) I doubt I have brought some Quotations, enough offensive to some that have more of Epicurus than of Jesus Christ in their Divinity; and that stick at nothing to maintain their Ecclesiastical Monarchy. But as Mr. Samuel Bolde (a Conformist ) hath reported, That a Church-Warden having Presented a Person unto the Ecclesiastical Court, one in the Court immediately applied himself unto the Register, saying, What do you mean? You'll spoil all; for this Gentleman is ONE OF US; he will swear and be Drunk as well as the BEST OF US: Say you so, quoth the Register, Then the Case is altered; and immediately calling the Church-Warden, he told him, he was a most impudent and villanous Rakehel to Present so worthy a Gentleman, and chid him sharply for it. Even so, when we Nonconformists meet with any man who desires the Reformation of the Church, to be carried on by the Rules of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Blessed men that first attempted it, intended it; or, who carries the heart of a true Englishman in him, for the Constitution of the State, with the Principles which alone can maintain the late happy Revolution; or who is for Government without Slavery, in Spirituals or Temporals; we must be excused if we presently cry out, This is ONE OF US; and though he may be a Conformist, yet make bold freely to Quote him as OUR OWN. For I do again say, the difference between us will, by a wonderful Work of Heaven upon the Nation, be quickly taken away; Ridley and Hooper will quickly shake Hands; and our Brethren [for we are Brethren] among the Conformable in the Church of England, will now quickly come to speak the Language exemplified in the Citations thus made from some of them: They will speak as the Learned Crakenthorp did for the Puritans in the former Age, In Doctrinâ & Fidei Orthodoxae profession Discordia inter nos nulla; Hâc integrâ, in Ritibus & Discipliná, Discrimen ferendum, utrique Scimus. We are one in Faith, and it's no matter whether we be one in Rite or no. Yea, they will speak it in so general and so prevailing a Note, That the wicked who will be grieved at it, shall gnash their teeth and melt away: Nor shall the Sons of Procrustes be able to hinder this Restoration of Mankind unto its Liberty. That part of the English Nation which values its true English Liberty (for which, if the Heavens were Parchment, and the Seas were Ink, as the Rabbi says, they would not suffice to write the just Praises of God), I say, that part of the English Nation, will not much longer permit the truest Friends of English Liberty to be suppressed, Abused, and Incapacitated, merely to please the Humours of a Faction, who have always done all they can to betray that English Liberty. A glorious King will set himself to put an effectual stop unto the Profanity and Immorality which have depraved the Kingdoms; and he will unite the Best People in the Nation, to assist that Best of Undertakings. A Senator invited Augustus Caesar unto a Feast; whereto as the Emperor was coming, he heard an horrid cry of a wretched man, whom he saw a Company dragging after them: The Emperor demanding the cause of that Violence, it was answered, Their Master had Condemned him to the Fish-ponds for Breaking a Glass which he set a high Value upon; whereupon he Commanded a stay of the Execution, until he arrived at the House of the Senator; where the Senator shown him a Room well furnished with Glasses, whereof he Valued some at the Price of a Province: The Emperor saw they were pretty things, but he saw that they were likely to be the cause of abundance of Mischief, and therefore uttering that Expression Better all these perish than one man, he presently broke them all to Pieces.

Our Caesar, and the most powerful Friends of our Caesar, will shortly pass the like righteous Doom upon those wretched things, which by being made the Terms of Communion, have really proved the Grounds of Separation between the Best People in the Nation. Such they have really proved, and such they will still, and ever prove, until Men are so Wise and Just, as to take them away: For 'tis truly observed by a Person of no mean consideration, and of some Conformity too, That should the Nation be at once emptied of one whole Generation of Nonconformists, so long as the reading of the Bible is suffered, another will unavoidably and immediately spring up. But when this Day of Coalition shall come, it will bring on the most glorious Times that ever arose upon the English Horizon; and as the Curse of our JESUS will fall, as it hath already fallen, upon the Persons and Houses of them who have assay'd the rebuilding of the Old Romish Jericho, which hath been so far there demolished; so in the room thereof there shall be introduced a New Jerusalem. THEN, the Dukes of Edom shall be amazed. And that in this Expectation also, I may not seem carried away with mere Fanaticism and Enthusiasm, I will take the leave to make one Quotation more from a Conformable Divine: 'It is Dr. Drue Cressener, who in the Year 1687. upon the Occasion of the late King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, wrote the following words: The present Revolutions, I look upon to be the beginning of the Preparations for the Universal Kingdom of Christ upon the Earth. Whatsoever others may intend or design by the Liberty of Conscience, I cannot believe that it will ever be recalled in England as long as the World stands. The next Year seems in all probability to be a Year of Wonders, for the Recovery of the Church. — And I send you the News of a continual Increase of the flourishing State of the Church very shortly to begin, and to continue unto the End of the World. In fine, As the first pretended Statute that ever was in England, for the vexing of Christians on the account of Religion, by the color whereof the Bishops committed great Oppressions and Cruelties, was one that never passed the House of Commons, but the House of Commons in the next Parliament, with the concurrence of the King, vehemently protested against it, albeit the then Bishop of London, with the help of the other Prelates, found a way unjustly to suppress and conceal the Revocation of that pretended Statute; so it may be hoped our Lord Jesus Christ will bless the Nation with Parliaments that shall restrain a Corrupt Clergy, not only from vexing of Christians on the account of Religion, but also from stopping anymore the progress of Religion in the Nation. THEN, Thus saith the Lord God, concerning EDOM; The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee; thou whose habitation is high, that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Tho thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. — Savior's shall come upon mount Zion, to judge the mount of Esau, and the kingdoms shall be the Lord's. What shall I say? The Spirit of Christ sent forth at the Reformation, an Hundred and fourscore Years ago, carried back some Advice, That the Deluge of Popish Ignorance, and Wickedness, and Wretchedness, was abated from off the earth. But that Spirit is going to be again sent forth, and it will remain here, without leaving this woeful World, as it hath heretofore done; for behold, The face of the earth will quickly be dry before it. Then the Spirit of Christ shall no longer be remarkably distinguished from the Spirit of the Church; and Luther 's Complaint shall no more be made, Sunt nunc homines, magis vindictae cupidi, magis avari, magis ab omni misericordiâ remoti, magis immodesti, & indisciplinati, multoque deteriores, quam fuerunt sub Papatu.

§. 13. Indeed those Dispensations of Heaven that shall bring on the Reformation and the Resurrection of the European Churches, can be no other than Constellations of Miracles. But fear not, O ye Disciples, whose Faith is almost sunk in the Storms which threaten to overwhelm that Bark which hath the Interests of One infinitely greater than Caesar in the bottom of it: An Age of Miracles is now dawning upon the World; and

Proper Miracles were continued in the Church of God, for Two or Three Hundred Years together, even until the Antichristian Apostasy was come on to some extremity. And whether there may not be a Return of those powers of the world to come, when the Apostasy shall be over, is known unto the Lord of that world. Such Miracles have been lately wrought, more than two or three of them, in the City of London, as well as elsewhere: Persons who have had their Limbs miserably disjointed, Persons that have had inveterate Palsies, incurable Fistulaes, desperate Leprosies; these Persons, as they have been reading the Ancient Miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Christ hath wonderfully given them the Faith of his doing the like for them; and behold! they have to the astonishment of Mankind, been by the like Miracles perfectly and presently recovered out of all their Maladies. If the Relations and Evidences that we have of these Great Things had not been incontestable, I would not have mentioned them: Now say I, That the Lord's Name (that is, his Christ) is near, his wondrous works declare. I make no doubt that these may be Symbolical Representations and Exhibitions of the Great Things which the Miraculous Providence of our Lord Jesus Christ is going to do for his People in the World. After a very deliberate Meditation and Inquisition upon the Divine Oracles, and after utmost Application to those Methods by which one may arrive to any understanding in the Times, I do humbly affirm, That we may understand by Books the Number of Years allotted for the Church's lying under its Desolations, to be very near unto its Accomplishment. And this Book of mine does now appear among you, ye faithful People of God, with Good Tidings of great Joy, even the Tidings of a REVOLUTION and a REFORMATION at the very Door, which will be vastly more wonderful than any of the Deliverances yet seen by the Church of God from the beginning of the World. Yea, if this Book were capable of carrying the Advice as far as the Voice of the Seventh Apocalyptical Trumpet (which we may be sure must sound quickly ) shall be extended, it should carry this Advice, The Kingdom of God is at hand. The precise Year for the great Revolution, I do not pretend so much as to conjecture; but that the Time is at hand, I venture to utter as a thing beyond Conjecture. We all know, Glorious things are spoken of thee, O thou city of God! I say not that these things will come on without such horrible Commotions, and Concussions, and Confusions, that men's hearts everywhere shall fail them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. The mighty Angels of the Lord Jesus Christ will make their descent, and set the World a trembling at the Approaches of their Almighty Lord: They will shake Churches, and shake Nations, and shake Empires, and shake mighty Kingdoms, and shake once more not Earth only, but Heaven also. And the Great SWORD foretold by Lactantius, to fall from Heaven to Earth, when the Lord of the Celestial Armies is at hand, will fill both Pages of all Gazettes with Armies, and Campaigns, and Sieges, and horrendous Desolations. But this is to be expected, That the Day is at hand, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ: Even the Day when Rome, with all its Unreformable Adherents and Supporters, will not only see fulfilled the Prophecy of her own Irish Malachi, Civitas Septi-collis diruetur, & judex tremendus judicabit populum suum; but shall also suffer all the Plagues threatened her in a more sure word of prophecy. And shall not an early and an happy Share in the Holy Changes that are coming upon the World, be enjoyed by Great Britain, the Island which was irradiated with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, several Years before the chiefest Pretenders of St. Peter 's being at Rome, durst propose his Arrival there, even according to the Assertion of the Ancient Gildas, Tempore ut scimus summo Tiberii Caesaris, Radios suos primum indulget, id est, praecepta, Christus: We know Christ granted his Rays to this Land first, in the latter end of Tiberius Caesar, whose last Year was the Thirty seventh of our Lord? There is no little reason to be given for such an hope. The Omnipotent Lord Jesus Christ, who manages the Isles as a very little thing, even as a Man does the Spittle in his Mouth [for so the Seventy render that Passage] giving it whatever Turn, and whatever Cast he pleaseth, hath marvelous Things to do in Great Britain; yea, upon those Islands his people shall renew their strength; and the unreasonable and Schismatical TESTS that have enfeebled them, will be taken off. Now as Judas Maccabaeus, after the Prophanation of the Mosaical Sanctuary by Antiochus [who some say was the first that ever invaded Liberty of Conscience, and I add, a Type of the Last; ] for Twelve hundred and sixty Natural Days, then spent Thirty Days in the Purification of the Temple, and spent Forty five Days more to prepare all things for the Dedication of it; so 'tis not improbable, that when the Twelve hundred and sixty Years of Antichrist are out, there may go some Years to sweep and cleanse the Church of many wrong things that are crept into it; and then comes the End, which blessed is he that waits and comes unto. But the Days of Purification are hastening upon the Church, wherein the Temple will be swept and cleansed from the things that have hitherto defiled it; and though' there should then be found in England particularly, any considerable Persons guilty of Jerome 's fault, who undertook the Patronage of the Abuses in the beginning of the Fifth Century, against which Vigilantius appeared, and who bestowed the name of Dormitantius, with other base and bad Language upon that Man of God; yet such vigilant Servants of God, as become vigorous Reformers of the Abuses now prevailing, shall be gloriously prospered. Sirs! You are not now to be discouraged with an Abi in cellam, & dic, miserere mei Deus: 'It is Time for you to be at work, even at the Work of publishing to the Church of God, those Principles of Evangelical Truth, whereto it should be more conformed. Let the Witnesses of our Lord, who have hitherto been Preaching under the Cross, now set themselves to extraordinary Prayer, with Fasting, like the Devotions of Daniel before the Lord; and in the solemnest way often resigning themselves up to the Holy Spirit of God, that being possessed by him, they may be fitted for, and used in the most eminent Services: Let them then study what Services they would have the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, find them engaged in. You are going to drop off your Sackcloth, ye Elijah's; the Old Cloaths of the Wilderness will be taken from you sooner than you are aware; and you shall have the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

If Luther, with the other Heroes of his Time, had been apprehensive that the Time appointed for making better and hotter Batteries than those which Huss and others had an Hundred Years before made upon the Romish Babylon, was come on, what Security would have been added unto their Magnanimity?

The Conformists Reasons for hearing and joining with the Nonconformists.

1. THE same Reasons which oblige Persons to hear and join with us, oblige us also to take all Opportunities of hearing and joining with the Nonconformists, they being Ministers of Christ, having due Call and Authority from him to preach the Gospel. The Church hath real need of their Labors, their Ministry is hated by Satan and his Instruments; they are duly subject to the higher Powers, and are protected by the Law of the Land in the course of their Ministry, and are a considerable part of that same Church of England, which His present Majesty under God is Supreme Governor of, according to the old Oath of Supremacy, and the 37th Article of the Church of England.

2. Those Words of our Savior's take place here; He that is not against us, is on our part, Mark 9.40. The Nonconformists really are not against us, therefore they are on our part. The Scope and Drift of their Ministry is to win Souls, not to this or that Sect, but to Christ; to teach them their Duty to God, and to His present Majesty, as sole Supreme under God, and the common Center of Catholic Unity in these Nations. They are truly tender of our Ministry, rejoice in our Labors, and in the Gifts and Graces of able and faithful Conformists, rebuke Backbiters and Vilifyers of our Ministry; and as they have opportunity, some of them hear and join with us and our Churches.

3. In the time of the late King James the Church of England did confess its Error in being severe to the Nonconformists. This is plain from a certain Pamphlet published in the late King's Reign, entitled, A Letter to a Dissenter, upon occasion of his Majesty's late gracious Declaration of Indulgence. The Words thereof, page 8. are these following; The Church of England convinced of its Error in being severe to you; the Parliament, whenever it meeteth, will sure be gentle to you: the next Heir bred in the Country which you have so often quoted for a Pattern of Indulgence: A general Agreement of all thinking Men, that we must no more cut ourselves off from the Protestants abroad, but rather enlarge the Foundations upon which we are to build our Defences against the common Enemy; so that in truth all things seem to conspire to give you Ease and Satisfaction, &c. This is to be looked upon as the general Sense of the Conforming Nobility, Gentry, Commonalty, and Clergy, in the time of the late King's Reign: for so really it was, as is well known. Now here the Church of England doth confess its Error towards the Dissenters, and to have erred not in some slight and trivial Matters, but in Matters touching the Foundation; and sees a necessity of enlarging its Foundations, and consequently of taking in the Nonconformists, and making them constituent Parts of the Church with herself. Either then the Nonconformists are upon one and the same Foundation with ourselves, or they deserve to be; and it is through no fault of theirs that they are not: Being upon the same Foundation, we cannot be against their Ministry and Meetings, but we must needs be against our own, and overthrow the Common Protestant Cause, Religion, and Interest in this Nation, and consequently in all other Nations and Countries, what in us lies; and in being for their Ministry, we are for our own.

4. These Scriptures set together, prove it a Duty, viz. Hear, and your soul shall live, Isa. 55.3. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, Mat. 18.20. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, 2 Tim. 4.1, 2. Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more: And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ) that I might gain them that are without law: To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some: And this I do for the gospel's sake, 1 Cor. 9.19, 20, 21, 22, 23.

5. The Communion of Saints is a principal Part of the Catechism, and of the common Creed of Christendom; it is a Fundamental in true Religion, most frequently repeated in all Conforming Congregations. Now we do not duly believe and practice this Fundamental, unless we hear and join with the Nonconforming Brethren in the Word, and Prayer, d Sacraments, as we have Call and Opportunity, they being visible Saints, and there being nothing in their way of Worship, but what is either laudable or tolerable: God doth own and approve their Ministry and Meetings, and is graciously present with them.