leavs his kind entertainer in the fhop trading all day without his religion.

Another fort there be who when they hear that all things fhall be order'd, all things regulated and setl'd; nothing writt'n but what paffes through the customhouse of certain Publicans that have the tunaging and the poundaging of all free spok'n truth, will strait give themselvs up into your hands, mak'em and cut'em out what religion ye please; there be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes that will fetch the day about from fun to fun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightfull dream. What need they torture their heads with that which others have tak'n so strictly, and fo unalterably into their own pourveying. These are the fruits which a dull eafe and ceffation of our knowledge will bring forth among the people. How goodly, and how to be wifht were such an obedient unanimity as this, what a fine conformity would it ftarch us all into? doubtles a ftanch and folid peece of framework, as any January could freeze together.

Nor much better will be the consequence ev'n among the Clergy themselvs; it is no new thing never heard of before, for a parochiall Minifter, who has his reward, and is at his Hercules pillars in a warm benefice, to be easily inclinable, if he have nothing else that may roufe up his studies, to finish his circuit in an English concordance and a topic folio, the gatherings and favings of a fober graduatship, a Harmony and a Catena, treading the conftant round of certain common doctrinall heads, attended with their uses, motives, marks and means, out of which as out of an alphabet or fol fa by forming and transforming, joyning and difjoyning variously a little book-craft, and two hours meditation might furnish him unspeakably to the performance of more then a weekly charge of fermoning: not to reck'n up the infinit helps of interlinearies, breviaries, fynopfes, and other loitering gear. But as for the multitude of Sermons ready printed and pil'd up, on every text that is not difficult, our London

trading St Thomas in his veftry, and adde to boot St. Martin, and St Hugh, have not within their hallow'd limits more vendible ware of all forts ready made: fo that penury he never need fear of Pulpit pro vision, having where so plenteously to refresh his ma gazin. But if his rear and flanks be not impal'd, if his back dore be not secur'd by the rigid licencer, but that a bold book may now and then issue forth, ana give the affault to fome of his old collections in their trenches, it will concern him then to keep waking, to stand in watch, to set good guards and fentinells about his receiv'd opinions, to walk the round and counterround with his fellow infpectors, fearing left any of his flock be feduc't, who also then would be better inftructed, better exercis'd and difciplin'd. And God fend that the fear of this diligence which must then be us'd, doe not make us affect the lazines of a licencing Church.

For if we be fure we are in the right, and doe not hold the truth guiltily, which becomes not, if we ourfelves condemn not our own weak and frivolous teaching, and the people for an untaught and irreligious gadding rout, what can be more fair, then when a man judicious, learned, and of a confcience, for ought we know, as good as theirs that taught us what we know, shall not privily from house to house, which is more dangerous, but openly by writing publish to the world what his opinion is, what his reasons, and wherefore that which is now thought cannot be found. Chrift urg'd it as wherewith to justifie himself, that he preacht in publick; yet writing is more publick then preaching; and more eafie to refutation, if need be, there being fo many whose businesse and profeffion meerly it is, to be the champions of Truth; which if they neglect, what can be imputed but their floth, or inabilty?

Thus much we are hinder'd and dif-inur'd by this cours of licencing towards the true knowledge of what we seem to know. For how much it hurts and hinders the licencers themselves in the calling of their Min

E

iftery, more then any fecular employment, if they will discharge that office as they ought, so that of neceflity they must neglect either the one duty or the other, I insist not, because it is a particular, but leave it to their own conscience, how they will decide it there.

There is yet behind of what I purpos'd to lay open, the incredible losse, and detriment that this plot of licencing puts us to, more then if som enemy at sea should stop up all our hav'ns and ports, and creeks, it hinders and retards the importation of our richest Marchandize, Truth; nay it was first establisht and put in practice by Antichristian malice and mystery on set purpose to extinguish, if it were poffible, the light of Reformation, and to fettle falfhood; little differing from that policie wherewith the Turk upholds his Alcoran, by the prohibition of Printing. 'Tis not deny'd, but gladly confeft, we are to send our thanks and vows to heav'n, louder then most of Nations, for that great measure of truth which we enjoy, especially in those main points between us and the Pope, with his appertinences the Prelats: but he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attain'd the utmoft prospect of reforma· tion, that the mortalle glasse wherein we contemplate, can fhew us, till we come to beatific vision, that man by this very opinion declares, that he is yet farre short of Truth.

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, then strait arose a wicked race of deceivers, who as that ftory goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his confpirators, how they dealt with the good Ofiris, took the virgin Truth, hewd her lovely form into a thousand peeces, and scatter'd them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the fad friends of Truth, fuch as durft appear, imitating the carefull fearch that Ifis made for the mangl'd body of Ofiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them

all, Lords and Commons, nor ever fhall' doe, till her Masters second comming; he fhall bring together every joynt and member, and shall mould them into an immortall feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not thefe licencing prohibitions to ftand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue feeking, that continue to do our obfequies to the torn body of our martyr'd Saint. We boast our light; but if we look not wifely on the Sun it self, it fmites us into darknes. Who can discern those planets that are oft Combuft, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the Sun, untill the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament, where they may be seen evning or morning. The light which we have gain'd, was giv'n us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a Prieft, the unmitring of a Bishop, and the removing him from off the Prefbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy Nation, no, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule of life both economicall and politicall be not lookt into and reform'd, we have lookt fo long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin hath beacon'd up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually complain of schisms and fects, and make it such a calamity that any man diffents from their maxims. 'Tis their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meeknes, nor can convince, yet all must be fuppreft which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite thofe diffever'd peeces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth.. To be ftill searching what we know not, by what we know, ftill clofing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and proportionall) this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in Arithmetick, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forc't and outward union of cold, and neutrall, and inwardly divided minds.

Lords and Commons of England, confider what Nation it is wherof ye are, and wherof ye are the governours: a Nation not flow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing fpirit, acute to invent, futtle and finewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can foar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest Sciences have bin so ancient, and fo eminent among us, that Writers of good antiquity, and ableft judgement have bin perfwaded that ev'n the school of Pythagoras, and the Perfian wisdom took beginning from the old Philofophy of this Iland. And that wife and civill Roman, Julius Agricola, who govern'd once here for Cæfar, preferr'd the naturall wits of Britain, before the labour'd studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Tranfilvanian fends out yearly from as farre as the mountanous borders of Ruffia, and beyond the Hercynian wildernes, not their youth, but their stay'd men, to learn our language, and our theo logic arts. Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the love of heav'n we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards Why elfe was this Nation chos'n before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclam'd and founded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europ. And had it not bin the obftinat perverfnes of our Prelats against the divine and admirable fpirit of Wicklef, to fuppreffe him as a schifmatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huffeand Jerom, no nor the name of Luther, or of Calvin had bin ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had bin compleatly ours. But now, as our obdurat Clergy have with violence demean'd the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest Schollers, of whom God offer'd to have made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of figns, and by the generall inftinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and folemnly expreffe their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin fome new and great period in his Church, ev'n to the reform

us.