houses; but the consideration of these great corruptions lay so in his way, that without doing the greatest force on his conscience imaginable, and thereby securing to himself damnation, by complying with things he judged so damnable, he durst not do it. Yet, for his further satisfaction, he went among them to see if their worship appeared more amiable in practice than it did in writings; but I have heard him often declare, that though his mind was as free from prepossessions as perhaps ever man's was, yet all he conceived of them, even from the writings of their adversaries, was nothing compared with the impressions which the sight of their worship left upon him, it appearing so histrionical in all its circumstances, and so idolatrous in its substance, especially as he saw the vulgar practice it. And for their religious houses, he was among a great many of all orders, but was far from meeting with that spirit of devotion he had hoped to find among them; for they always magnified their order, and the little external austerities and devotion of it; but for genuine humility, a delight in God and Christ, abstraction from the world (for all their frocks and retirements), sincere heavenly-mindedness, and fervent charity to the brethren, he regretted that he had met with little of it among them. And that he found the several orders full of emulation and envy at other orders, and of heats among themselves, which made him see, that he who meant to lead a devout life, must choose another sanctuary than any of these that he saw in that communion.

I deny not that it is the greatest defect in the Reformation, that there are not in it such encouragements to a devout life; though the entanglement of vows to things without our power is a manifest invasion of the Christian liberty; and to languish out one's life in a tract of lazy devotion, without studying to serve God in our generation, seems contrary to the intendment of religion, a great many of its precepts being about those duties we owe our neighbours: yet, for all this, it is not to be denied to be a great defect, that we want recluse houses for a stricter training up of those who design to lead a spiritual life, and to serve in the Gospel, that their minds being rightly formed before their first setting out, they may be well qualified and furnished for their work. Such houses might also be retreating places for old persons, after they had served their generation, and were no more able to undergo toil and fatigue; they might be also sanctuaries for devout persons, in times of their greater afflictions or devotions. But for all this want, it

fixeth no imputation on our Church, her doctrine, or worship, that she is so poor as not to be able to maintain such seminaries. But, by the way, it is no great character of the piety of their Church, that she abounds so with great and rich donations, when we consider the arts they have used for acquiring them, by making people believe themselves secure of heaven by such donations: indeed, had we got our people befooled into such persuasions the cheat might have prospered as well in our hands; but we are not of those who handle the word of God deceitfully; nor will we draw the people even to do good with a crafty guile, or lie for God.

But now, as a conclusion to this discourse, I must consider if all things among us be so sound and well grounded, that with a quiet mind and good conscience every one may hold communion with our Church, and hope for salvation in it; I shall therefore briefly run over the nature and characters of the Christian faith, to see if any contradiction to them, or any part of them, be found among us. And first of all, we worship God in spirit, as a Spiritual Being, with suitable adorations. which we direct to no image or symbol of the Divine presence, but teach that we ought not to figure God to any corporal being, no, not in our thoughts; neither do we worship any beside God the Father, Son, and Spirit: we also worship Christ, but as he is God, and hath the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily: angels indeed we honour, but knowing them to be our fellow-servants we cannot pray to them, or fall down before them: we count the holy Virgin blessed among women, but dare give her no share of the glory due to her Son: all the saints we reverence and love; but knowing God to be "a jealous God," we cannot divide that honour among them which is only due to him, and therefore do neither worship them, their images, nor their relics. We desire also to offer up to God such sacrifices as we know are well pleasing to him, prayers, praises, broken and contrite hearts, and our souls and bodies; but reject all charms and enchantments from our worship, as contrary to the reasonable service which is acceptable to God, and to retain the genuine simplicity of the Gospel-worship in a plain and intelligible style and form, without any mixtures drawn from Judaism and Gentilism and thus there is nothing among us contrary to the first design of religion.

And as little will be found against the second, which is the honour due to Christ in all his offices. We teach our people

to study the Scriptures, and to examine all we say by them, and exhort them to depend on God, who by his Spirit will teach them as well as us; neither do we pretend to an authority over their consciences, but acknowledge ourselves men of like infirmities with the people, who are all called to be a royal priesthood; and thus we honour Christ's prophetical office, by founding our faith only on the divine authority of the Scriptures. "We also believe there is no name given under heaven by which we can be saved, but the name of Christ, who laid down his life a ransom for our souls, that by his cross we might be reconciled to God;" and it is to that one sacrifice that we teach all to fly for obtaining remission of sins, and the favour of God, trusting only to it, and to nothing we have done or can do; knowing that when we have done all we can do, we are but unprofitable servants; much less do we hope for any thing from any of our fellow creatures. We apply our souls to no intercessor but Christ, and trust to no satisfaction but his ; and we acknowledge him the only king of his Church, whose laws must bind it to the end of the world. Neither do we acknowledge any other authority but his over our consciences. It is true, in things indifferent he hath left a power with his Church to determine in those matters, which may tend to advance order, edification, peace, and decency; but as the Church cannot add to our faith, so neither can it institute new pieces of worship, which shall commend us to God, or bind any load upon our souls. We own a ministerial authority in all the pastors of the Church, which they derive from Jesus Christ, and not from any visible head on earth, and therefore they are only subject to Christ. We also hold that the civil powers are of Christ, whose Gospel binds the duty of obedience to them more closely on us; and therefore if they do wrong, we leave them to Christ's tribunal, who set them up, but pretend to no power from his Gospel to coerce or resist them; and thus we honour Christ in all his offices, and so are conform to the second branch of the design of our faith.

We also receive the third with the same fidelity; and whatever the practices of too many among us be, yet there is no ground to quarrel our doctrine. We preach repentance to all, and study to convince them of their misery and lost estate, that they may mourn for their sins and turn to God by a new course of life; we preach faith through Christ in God, as that which unites our souls to him, by which we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. We stir up our people "to love the Lord their

God with all their heart, strength, soul, and mind, and to wait for his Son Christ Jesus, who is the hope of glory, and shall change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious body." And from this great motive do we press our people to the study of holiness, without which they shall never see God. We send them to the Ten Commandments for the rule of their lives, whose exposition we chiefly take from Christ's Sermon on the Mount; neither can we be charged for having taught the people to break one of the least of these Commandments. We exhort all our hearers to make the life of Christ the pattern of theirs, and to learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart; neither can our Church be accused of having taught any carnal doctrines for gratifying the base interest of the flesh, or for engrossing the power and treasure of the world, the subsistence of our churchmen being but a livelihood and not a treasure. In a word, we preach Christ and him crucified, and all the rules of his Gospel, for ordering the conversation aright, without adding or taking from it; and thus our conformity to the third branch of Christianity appears.

We teach also, according to the fourth branch of Christianity, the doctrines of charity; neither do we condemn any who hold the foundation, though in some lesser matters they differ from us: but hope they may be saved as well as we. We abhor the doctrine of cruel persecuting of any for their consciences. The utmost we allow of, or desire of that nature, being the preservation of our own societies pure from the contagion of other traffickers, and the driving from us those who do so disturb us. All the authority we give the Church is paternal, and not tyrannical; our churchmen we hold to be the pastors, but not the lords of the flock, who are obliged to feed them sincerely, both by their doctrine, labours, and whole conversation. But we pretend to no blind obedience due to their directions; and count them noble Christians, who search and try all they say by that test of the Scriptures. We send the people to confess their sins to God, from whom only we teach them to expect their pardon; and pretend to no other keys, but ministerial ones, over public and known scandals. In our worship, as all do understand it, so every one may join in it. And in the number, use, and simplicity of our sacraments, we have religiously adhered to the rules of the Gospel, we holding them to be solemn federal rites of our stipulation with God: in which, if we do worthily partake of them, we are assured of the presence of the divine spirit and grace, for uniting our souls more en

tirely to God, and advancing us in all the ways of the spirit of life; and if the institution of them in the Gospel be compared with our administration of them, it will appear how close we have kept to our rule.

And thus we see how exactly conformable the doctrine of our Church is to the whole branches of the Christian design; upon which it is not to be doubted, but the characters of the Christian religion will also fit ours. We found our faith only on the Scriptures; and though we pay a great deal of venerable esteem to the Churches of God during their purity, which continued above four centuries, and so be very willing to be determined in rituals and matters that are external and indifferent by their opinions and practices; yet our faith settles only on the word of God, and not on the traditions of men; neither do we believe every spirit that pretends to raptures and visions, but try the spirits, whether they be of God or not; "and though an angel should preach to us another Gospel, we should hold him accursed." The miracles we trust to, as the proofs of the truth of that revelation which we believe, are only those contained in the Scriptures; and though we believe there was a wonder-working power continued for some time in the Church, yet we make a great difference betwixt what we historically credit, and what we religiously believe; neither will we, for supporting our interest or authority, have recourse to that base trade of forging lying wonders; but we rest satisfied with the miracles Christ and his Apostles wrought for the proof of the religion we own, since what we believe is no other than what they taught; and therefore we leave the trade of forging new miracles to them who have forged a new religion.

And for the plain genuineness of the Gospel, we have not departed a step from it, since we call upon our people by all the motives we can devise, and with all the earnestness we are masters of, to receive full and clear instruction in all the matters of our religion, which we distinctly lay open to them. And nothing of interest or design can be charged on us, who pretend to nothing but to be the stewards of the mysteries of God; nor have we offered to sophisticate the simplicity of our worship by any additions to it; for the determining about some particular forms is no addition to worship, but only the following forth of these precepts of doing all things to edification, peace, and order. But an addition to worship is, when any new piece of divine service is invented, with a pretence of our being more acceptable to God thereby, or of our receiving grace by