of God was originally given for a standard of faith and practice; where this ftandard has been preferved, there faith and practice have been in general kept pure, and where other standards have been fet up, although fome one ordinance may have been preserved pure, (which by the way has not been the cafe) yet it must have been an acci dental, and not a conftitutional purity, and fo of little value to purity, and of none to the hiftory of it. Pulpits are publick tell-tales, and a fenfelefs tale they tell, when they are the mouth of a faction! A collection and repetition of these tales is not a history of the miniftration of THE DIVINE WORD.

All our divines affirm, all our hiftorians prove, and the church of Rome does not deny, that there have been from the days of the apofties various DISSENTERS from all established corporations called churches. They have been loaded with innumerable calumnies, recorded under odious names, taxed with holding deteftable errors, and branded with publick infamy: but, at the reformation, these diffenters were traced, brought out of obfcurity, washed and new clothed, and produced as evidences upon the trial of the queftion, Where was your church before Luther?

I have feen enough to convince me, that the prefent English Diffenters, contending for the fufficiency of fcripture, and for primitive chriftian liberty to judge of its meaning, may be traced back in authentick manufcripts to the Non-conformists, to the Puritans, to the Lollards, to the Vallenfes, to the Albigenfes, and I fufpect through the Paulicians, and others to the Apofties. Thefe churches had fometimes a clandeftine existence, and at other times a vifible, I wish I could fay a legal one: but

at

at all times they held more truth, and less error than the prevailing factions, that perfecuted them. One branch uniformly denied the baptifm of infants, all allowed chriftian liberty, and all were enemies to an established hierarchy reigning over the confciences of their brethren. I have now before me a manufcript register of Gray bishop of Ely, which proves, that in the year 1457, there was a congregation of this fort in this village, Chesterton, where I live, who privately affembled for divine worship, and had preachers of their own, who taught them the very doctrine, which now we preach. Six of them were accufed of herefy before the tyrant of the district, and condemned to abjure herefy, and to do pennance, half naked, with a faggot at their backs, and a taper in their hands, in the publick market places of Ely, and Cambridge, and in the church-yard of Great Swaffham. It was pity the poor fouls were forced to abjure the twelfth article of their accufation, in which they are faid to have affirmed, All priests, and people in orders, are incar(8) nate devils!

A hundred fuch inftances may be produced, a thousand curious anecdotes of the manners of our ancestors, of their language, books, utenfils, habits, reafoning, and rhetorick, might incidentally furnish amufement and inftruction to us, and nothing would be found easier to industry, than to connect their ecclefiaftical economy with that of the above-mentioned antelutheran proteftants. We

are

(8) Art. XII. Item, quod papa eft antichriftus, et facerdotes funt ejus difcipuli, et omnes ordinati funt diaboli incarnati.-XI. Item, quod extrema un&tio, anglice grefyng, minime proficit.-III. Item, quod puer . . nec egeat, nec baptizari debeat. &c. &c.-Reg. Elienf. Gul. Gray. MSS.

are far from justifying their mistakes, and approv ing in the grofs: but we know popish records are everlasting calumnies, and the hiftory of the chrif tian pulpit is among the people, whom they calumniate,

I see a thousand benefits arifing to religion at large from the purfuit of this method, and I will venture to name one. It is generally allowed, that toleration is a high excellence in a fyftem of civil polity, and that christian liberty in the church is analogous to it: but it is almost as generally fuppofed, that our ancestors were all ignorant of it, and that Sidney, Milton, Locke, and others of our late philofophers and ftatefmen, first inculcated thefe laws of humanity, and incorporated what we have of them into our modern conftitutions. What if we could prove, that Jefus Chrift, whofe profeffion was theology, taught the doctrine of christian liberty, and that he only taught in a clearer manner what had from the days of Enoch been held and taught in the primitive pulpits! What if we could prove, that from the days of the apoftles, the moft tolerant of mankind, the doctrine had been actually believed, taught and exemplified in every age till the reformation! What if we could prove, that the generous toleration of modern states was only the doctrine of chriftian liberty applied to fecular affairs, and stood exactly in the fame predicament in a treatife of government as natural religion ftands in a fyftem of modern theology, that is, a first principle of human felicity, difcoverable by reafon: but elucidated and improved by revelation! What if we could afcertain by good records, that difference in religious fentiments and practices made no difference in civil

rights

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rights and mutual efteem among whole fects and parties! What if we could fhew, that religious uniformity was an illegitimate brat of the mother of hariots, and nothing akin to the Son of God! What if we could infer . . . Prosperity and peace be with any investigator! Alas! I must quit reveries, and go this afternoon to vifit the fick, and 'preach in the evening to a part of my flock.

Before I go, however, I will finish this article by a remark, which will prove, I think, that this is not all reverie. The thirteenth article, objected against the forementioned Chesterton culprits by the bishop, in his confiftory at Downham, is this. "Also, you affirm, that every man may be called a church of God, fo that if any one of you fhould be fummoned before his ecclefiaftical judge, and should happen to be asked this queftion, Do you believe in the church? he may fafely anfwer, he does, meaning that he believes in the church, because he believes the church is in every man, who is a temple of God." Now is not this affirming, that every good man was bound to follow his own. judgment in religious matters, and not to be fet down by the opinions of a domineering faction, calling themfelves, the church? Is a man strong for being called Samfon, or wife for naming himfelf Solomon? Does it not mean, that every man had as much right of judging in himself folely as the whole community had collectively? We could

go

(9) Item, Quod quilibet homo dicitur eccla Dei, adeo quod fi quanquam illorum coram judice ecclefiaftico evocatum ad hanc queftionem refpondere contingeret, an in eccla credis, tute tunc refpondere poffet quod fic, per hoc intelligens, quod in eccla credit, quia in homine qui eft templum Dei. MSS. Ubi fupra.

go further, and prove that these fix men, altho' all in one community, did not all hold the fame articles, fome agreed to one, fome to another: but they all, the register fays, affirmed this thirteenth article. Does not this prove that their ecclefiaftical œconomy allowed chriftian liberty, and that they held a mixt communion?.. But I must

go.

To return. The glorious reformation was the offspring of preaching, by which mankind were informed, there was a standard, and the religion of the times was put to trial by it. The avidity of the common people to read fcripture, and to hear it expounded, was wonderful, and the papifts were fo fully convinced of the benefit of frequent publick inftruction, that they, who were juftly called unpreaching prelates, and whofe pulpits, to ufe an expreffion of Latimer, had been bells without clappers for many a long year, were obliged for fhame to fet up regular preaching again.

The church of Rome has produced fome great preachers, fince the reformation; but not equal to the reformed preachers: and a question naturally arifes here, which it would be unpardonable to pass over in filence, concerning the fingular effect of the preaching of the reformed, which was general, national, universal reformation.

In the darkest times of popery there had arisen now and then fome famous popular preachers, who had zealously inveighed against the vices of their times, and whofe fermons had produced fudden and amazing effects on their auditors: but all thefe effects had died away with the preachers, who produced them, and all things had gone back into the old state. Law, learning, commerce, foVOL. II.

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