be wrought thereby for his church, as indeed there was, though not according to their conftruction. For, 4thly, contrary to their expectation, that railing spirit did not only not further, but extremely difgrace and prejudice their caufe, when it was once perceived from how low degrees of contradiction at first, to what outrage of contumely and flander they were at +length proceeded, and were alfo likely further to proceed. A further degree of outrage was in fact: Certain prophets did arise, who deeming it not poffible that God fhould fuffer that undone which they did fo fiercely defire to have done, namely that his holy faints, the favourers and fathers of the difcipline fhould be enlarged, and delivered from perfecution; and, feeing no means of deliverance ordinary, were fain to perfuade themselves that God muft needs raise fome extraordinary means: and being perfuaded of none fo well as of themselves, they forthwith must needs be the inftruments of this great work. Hereupon they framed unto themselves an affured hope, that upon their preaching out of a pease-cart all the multitude would have presently joined unto them, and in amazement of mind have asked them, "Viri fratres, quid agimus ?" whereunto it is likely they would have returned an anfwer far unlike to that of St. Peter; "Such and fuch are men unworthy to govern, pluck them down: "fuch and fuch are the dear children of God, let them be advanced." Of two of these men it is meet to speak with all commiferation, yet fo that others by their example may receive inftruction, and withal fome light may appear what stirring affections the discipline is likely to inspire, if it light upon apt and prepared minds. Now if any man doubt of what fociety they were, or if the reformers disclaim them, pretending that by them they were condemned, let thefe points be confidered. 1. Whofe affociates were they before their entering into this frantic paffion? Whofe fermons did they frequent? Whom did they admire? 2. Even when they were entering into it, Whofe advice did they require? and, when they were in, whofe approbation? Whom advertised they of their purpose? Whose affiftance by prayers did they request? But we deal injuriously with them to lay this to their charge; for they reproved and condemned it. How? did they disclose it to the magiftrate, that it might be fuppreffed? or were William Hacket, Edmund Coppinger, and Henry Arthington. were 297 or were they rather content to ftand aloof and fee the end of it, and loath to quench the spirit? No doubt these mad practitioners were of their fociety, with whom before, and in the practice of their madness, they had most affinity. Hereof read Dr. Bancroft's book'. A third inducement may be to diflike of the discipline, if we confider not only how far the reformers themselves have proceeded, but what others upon their foundations have built. Here come the Brownifts in the first rank, their lineal defcendants, who have feized upon a number of strange opinions; whereof although their ancestors, the reformers, were never actually poffeffed, yet by right and intereft from them derived, the Brownifts and Bar U u Entitled "A Survey of the pretended holy Difcipline; to which is prefixed a Sermon "preached against the Puritans, at St Paul's Cross, Feb. 9, 1588-9, from the following Text: Dearly beloved, believe not every Spirit, but try the Spirits whether they be of God, for many falfe "Prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John, iv. 1.” • Robert Brown, a person of a good family in Rutland shire, educated at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, was the founder of a fect of Puritans, who took their name from him. He inveighed with the most bitter acrimony against the Church of England, condemning her government as Antichriftian, her facraments as fuperftitious, and her whole liturgy as a compound of Paganifm and Popery. His own fyftem of religious inftitution was explained by him in a book entitled "A Treatife of Reformation." He wrote feveral tracts in fupport of his opinions, and sustained various perfecutions, having been committed at different times to thirty-two prifons, in fome of which he could not fee his hand at broad-day. Before his removal with his followers to Middleburg in Zealand, he became disgusted with their divifions and disputes; and though, according to Strype, he had gone a farther distance than any of the Puritans did, he renounced his principles of separation, being promoted by his relation, Lord Burghley, to a benefice, that of Achurch in Northamptonshire. -He is reprefented to have been unamiable in private life: And it is to be lamented that he always poffeffed a turbulent and unquiet difpofition. He died in a prison, in 1630, in the 80th year of his age, having been fent thither by a justice of the peace for affaulting a conftable, who was executing a warrant against him. (Strype's Life of Whitgift, B. IV. C. I. and Appendix, No. 45. Of the Brownifts, fee Fuller's Church Hiftory, B. IX. p. 168, and Mosheim's Ecclef. Hift. Vol. IV. •p. 98.) It appears from a passage in Shakespear that the Brownifts were treated as objects of fatire: "Policy I hate; I had as lief be a Brownift as a politician." (Twelfth Night, A. III. Sc. 11.) "Why now thou art a good knave, worth a hundred Brownists." (The Puritan, A. III. Sc. VI.) t and Barrowifts have taken poffeffion of them. For if the positions of the reformers be true, I cannot fee how the main and general conclufions of Brownifm fhould be falfe. For upon these two points, as I conceive, they ftand: 1. That because we have no church, they are to fever themselves from us. 2. That without civil authority they are to erect a church of their own. And if the former of these be true, the latter I fuppofe will follow. For if above all things, men be to regard their falvation; and if out of the church. there be no falvation, it followeth, that if we have no church, we have no. means of falvation; and therefore feparation from us in that respect is both lawful and neceffary. As alfo, that men, fo feparated from the falfe and counterfeit church, are to affociate themselves unto fome church; not to ours; to the Popish much lefs; therefore to one of their own making. Now the ground of all these inferences being this, that in our church there is no means of falvation, is out of the reformers' principles most clearly to be proved. For wherefoever any matter of faith unto falvation neceffary is: denied, there can be no means of falvation; but in the Church of England,, the difcipline, by them accounted a matter of faith, and neceffary to falvation, is not only denied, but impugned, and the profeffors thereof oppreffed. Ergo.. Again (but this reafon perhaps is weak), every true church of Chrift acknowledgeth the whole gospel of Chrift; the difcipline, in their opinion, is a part of the gofpel, and yet by our church refifted. Ergo. Again, the difcipline is effentially united to the church: by which term effentially, they must mean either an effential part, or an effential property. Both which ways it muft needs be, that where that effential difcipline is not,. neither is there any church. If, therefore, between them and the Brownists there fhould be appointed a folemn difputation, whereof with us they have been oftentimes fo earneft challengers; it doth not yet appear what other. anfwer they could poffibly frame to these and the like arguments, wherewith. So denominated from Henry Barrow, a layman, and noted fectary, who fuffered death for publishing feditious books against the Queen and the State. He derived his doctrine principally from Cartwright; maintaining, among other things, that the church of England was not a true church; that her minifters had no lawful calling; and that the use of forms of prayer was blafphemous. (Of this man and his opinions, fee Sir G. Paule's Life of Whitgift, p. 58.— Kennet's Hiftory of England, Vol. 11. p. 571.) with they might be preffed, but fairly to deny the conclufion (for all the premises are their own), or rather ingenioufly to reverse their own principles before laid, whereon fo foul abfurdities have been fo firmly built. What further proofs you can bring out of their high words, magnifying the difcipline, I leave to your better remembrance: but above all points, I am defirous this one should be ftrongly inforced against them, because it wringeth them most of all, and is of all others (for ought I fee) the most unanswerable. You may, notwithstanding, fay, that you would be heartily glad these their pofitions might fo be falved, as the Brownifts might not appear to have iffued out of their loins; but until that be done, they must give us leave to think that they have caft the feed whereout these tares are grown. Another fort of men there is, which have been content to run on with the reformers for a time, and to make them poor inftruments of their own defigns. These are a fort of godlefs politics, who, perceiving the plot of discipline to consist of these two parts, the overthrow of Epifcopal, and erection of Presbyterial authority, and that this latter can take no place till the former be removed, are content to join with them in the destructive part of difcipline, bearing them in hand, that in the other alfo they shall find them as ready. But when time fhall come, it may be they would be as loath to be yoked with that kind of regiment, as now they are willing to be released from this. These men's ends in all their actions is Toor, their pretence and colour reformation". Thofe things, which under this colour they have effected to their own good, are 1. By maintaining a contrary faction, they have kept the clergy always in awe, and thereby made them more pliable and willing to buy their peace. 2. By maintaining an opinion of equality among minifters, they have made way to their own purposes for devouring cathedral churches and bishops' livings. 3. By exclaiming againft abufes in the church, they have carried their own corrupt dealings in the civil ftate more covertly. For fuch is the nature of the multitude, they are not able to apprehend many things at once, fo as being poffeffed with diflike or liking of any one thing, many other in the mean time may escape them without being perceived. 4. They have fought In the later editions the fentence is, "Thefe men's ends in all their actions is diftraction; their pretence and colour reformation." to difgrace the clergy in entertaining a conceit in men's minds, and confirm ing it by continual practice, that men of learning, and especially of the clergy, which are employed in the chiefeft kind of learning, are not to be admitted, or fparingly admitted, to matters of ftate; contrary to the practice of all well-governed commonwealths, and of our own till these late years. A third fort of men there is, though not defcended from the reformers,. yet in part raised and greatly ftrengthened by them, namely, the curfed crew of Atheists. This alfo is one of those points, which I am defirous you should handle moft effectually, and ftrain yourself therein to all points of motion and affection; as in that of the Brownifts, to all ftrength and finews of reafon. This is a fort moft damnable, and yet by the general. fufpicion of the world at this day most common. The caufes of it, which are in the parties themselves, although you handle in the beginning of the fifth book, yet here again they may be touched; but the occafions of help, and furtherance, which by the reformers have been yielded unto them, are,, as I conceive, two; fenfeless preaching, and difgracing of the ministry: for how should not men dare to impugn that which neither by force of reason nor by authority of persons is maintained: But in the parties themselves these two causes I conceive of Atheism: 1. More abundance of wit than judg-. ment, and of witty than judicious learning; whereby they are more inclined to contradict any thing, than willing to be informed of the truth.-. They are not therefore men of sound learning for the most part, but smat-terers; neither is their kind of difpute fo much by föree of argument, as byfcoffing. Which humour of fcoffing and turning matters most serious into. merriment is now become fo common, as we are not to marvel what the prophet means by the feat of fcorners, nor what the apoftles by fore-telling: of fcorners to come; our own age hath verified their speech unto us. Which alfo may be an argument against these scoffers and Atheists themselves, seeing it hath been so many ages ago foretold, that fuch men the latter days of the world fhould afford; which could not be done by any other spirit fave that whereunto things future and prefent are alike. And even for the main queftion of the refurrection, whereat they stick fo mightily, was it not plainly foretold, that men should in the latter times fay, "Where is the pro ❝ mife |