thing necessary which shall never be taken from you, that in the midst of our sorrows, I must profess that I part with you with thankfulness and joy. And I will tell you for what I am so thankful, that you may know what I would have you be for the time to come.

I. I thank the Lord, that chose for me so comfortable a station, even a people whom he purposed to bless.

II. I thank the Lord that I have not laboured among you in vain, and that he opened the hearts of so great a number of yours, to receive his word with a teachable and willing mind.

III. I thank the Lord that he hath made so many of you as helpful to your neighbours in your place, as I have been in mine; and that you have not been uncharitable to the souls of others, but have with great success endeavoured the good of all.

IV. I rejoice that God hath kept you humble, that you have not been addicted to proud ostentation of your gifts or wisdom; nor inclined to invade any part of the sacred office, but to serve God in the capacity where he hath placed you.

V. I rejoice that God hath made you unanimous, and kept out sects and heresies, and schisms, so that you have served him as with one mind and mouth; and that you have not been addicted to proud wranglings, disputings, and contentions, but have lived in unity, love and peace, and the practice of known and necessary truths.

VI. I rejoice that your frequent meetings in your houses, spent only in reading, repeating your teacher's sermons, prayer and praise to God, have had none of those effecs which the conventicles of proud opiniators and self-conceited persons use to have, and which have brought even needful converse, and godly communication into suspicion at least with some, that argue against duty from the abuse.

Yea, I rejoice that hereby so much good hath been done by you. You have had above forty years' experience of the great benefit of such well ordered christian co wverse, increasing knowledge, quickening holy desires, prevailing with God, for marvellous, if not miraculous answers of your earnest prayers, keeping out errors and sects.

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VII. I am glad that you have had the great encouragement of so many sober, godly, able, peaceable ministers, in all that part of the country round about you, and mostly through that and the neighbour countries: men that avoided vain and bitter

contentions, that engaged themselves in no sects or factions; that of a multitude, not above two that I know of, in all our association, had ever any hand in wars; but their principles and practices were reconciling and pacificatory; they consented to catechize all their parishioners, house by house, and to live in the peaceable practice of so much church discipline, as good Christians of several parties were all agreed in. And you have lived to see what that discipline was, and what were the effects of such agreement.

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VIII. I am glad that you were kept from taking the solemn league and covenant, and the engagement, and all consent to the change of the constituted government of this kingdom. I took the covenant myself, of which I repent, and I will tell you why I never gave it but to one man (that I remember) and he professed himself to be a Papist physician newly turned Protestant, and he came to me to give it him: I was persuaded that he took it in false dissimulation, and it troubled me to think what it was to draw multitudes of men by carnal interest so falsely to take it and I kept it and the engagement from being taken in your town and country. At first it was not imposed but taken by volunteers: but after that it was made a test of such as were to be trusted or accepted. Besides the illegality, there are two things that cause me to be against it.

1. That men should make a mere dividing engine, and pretend it a means of unity: we all knew at that time when it was imposed, that a great part, if not the greatest, of church and kingdom were of another mind: and that as learned and worthy men were for prelacy, as most the world had (such as Usher, Morton, Hall, Davenant, Brownrig, &c.) And to make our terms of union to be such, as should exclude so many and such men, was but to imitate those church dividers and persecutors, who in many countries and ages, have still made their own impositions the engines of division, by pretence of union. And it seemeth to accuse Christ, as if he had not sufficiently made us terms of concord, but we must devise our own forms as necessary thereto.

2. And it was an imposing on the providence of God, to tie ourselves by vows to that as unchangeable, which we knew not but God might after change, as if we had been the masters of his providence. No man then knew but that God might so alter many circumstances, as might make some things sins, that were then taken for duty; and some things to be duty, which

then passed for sin. And when such changes come, we that should have been content with God's obligations, do find ourselves ensnared in our own rash vows.

And I wish that it teach no other men the way of dividing impositions, either to cut the knot, or to be even with the cove

nanters.

IX. I greatly rejoice, that family religion is so conscionably kept up among you, that your children and apprentices, seem to promise us a hopeful continuation of piety among

you.

X. And I thank God, that so great a number of persons, eminent for holiness, temperance, humility and charity, are safely got to heaven already, since I first came among you, and being escaped from the temptations and troubles of this present evil world, have left you the remembrance of their most imitable examples.

And having all this comfort in you, as to what is past, I shall once more leave you some of my counsels and requests, for the time to come, which I earnestly intreat you not to neglect.

I. Spend most of your studies in confirming your belief of the truth of the gospel, the immortality of the soul, and the life to come, and in exercising that belief, and laying up your treasure in heaven; and see that you content not yourselves in talking of heaven, and speaking for it; but that your hopes, your hearts, and your conversation be there; and that you live for it, as worldlings do for the flesh.

II. Flatter not yourselves with the hopes of long life on earth, but make it the sum of all your religion, care, and business, to be ready for a safe and comfortable death; for till you can fetch comfort from the life to come, you can have no comfort that true reason can justify.

III. Live as in a constant war against all fleshly lusts, and love not the world, as it cherisheth those lusts. Take heed of the love of money, as the root of manifold evils: think of riches with more fear than desire; seeing Christ hath told us, how hard and dangerous it maketh our way to heaven. When once a man falls deeply in love with riches, he is never to be trusted, but becomes false to God, to all others, and to himself.

IV. Be furnished beforehand with expectation and patience, for all evils that may befal you; and make not too great a

matter of sufferings, especially poverty, or wrong from men. It is sin and folly in poor men, that they overvalue riches, and be not thankful for their peculiar blessings. I am in hopes, that God will give you more quietness than many others, because there are none of you rich; it is a great means of safety to have nothing that tempteth another man's desire, nor that he envieth you for; despised men live quietly, and he that hath an empty purse, can sing among the robbers; he that lieth on the ground, feareth not falling. When Judea (and so when England by Saxons, Danes, &c.) was conquered, the poor were let alone to possess and till the land, and had more than before. It was the great and rich that were destroyed, or carried, or driven away. Is it not a great benefit to have your souls saved from rich men's temptations, and your bodies from the envy, assaults, and fears, and miseries that they are under ?

V. Take heed of a self-conceited, unhumbled understanding, and of hasty and rash conclusions; it is the fool that rageth, and is confident: sober men are conscious of so much darkness and weakness, that they are suspicious of their apprehensions proud self-conceitedness, and rash, hasty concluding, causeth most of the mischiefs in the world; which might be prevented, if men had the humility and patience to stay till things be thoroughly weighed and tried. Be not ashamed to profess uncertainty, where you are indeed uncertain. Humble doubting is much safer than confident erring.

VI. Maintain union and communion with all true Christians on earth; and therefore, hold to catholic principles of mere Christianity, without which you must needs crumble into sects. Love Christians as Christians, but the best most; locally separate from none, as accusing of them further than they separate from Christ, or deny you their communion, unless you will sin. The zeal of a sect as such, is partial, turbulent, hurtful to dissenters, and maketh men as thorns and thistles; but the zeal of Christianity as such, is pure and peaceable, full of mercy, and good fruits, mellow, and sweet, and inclineth to the good of all. If God give you a faithful, or a tolerable public minister; be thankful to God, and love, honour, and encourage him; and let not the imperfections of the Common Prayer make you separate from his communion; prejudice will make all modes of worship different from that which we prefer, to seem some heinous, sinful crime; but humble Christians are most careful about the frame of their own hearts, and conscious of so much faultiness in

themselves, and all their service of God, that they are not apt to accuse and aggravate the failings of others, especially in matters which God has left to our own determination. Whether we shall pray with a book, or without, in divers short prayers, or one long one; whether the people shall sing God's praise in tunes, or speak it in prose, &c., is left to be determined by the general rules of concord, order, and edification. Yet do not withdraw from the communion of soberly, godly non-conformists, though falsely called schismatics by others.

VII. Be sure that you maintain due honour and subjection to your governors: "Fear the Lord and the king, and meddle not with them that are given to change." (Prov. xxiv. 21.) And that in regard of the oath of God, (Eccles. viii. 2,) “Curse not the king, no not in thy thought, and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter." (Eccles. x. 20.) Obey God with your first and absolute obedience, and no man against him, but obey the just commands of magistrates, and that out of obedience to God; and suffer patiently when you cannot obey. And if God should ever cast you under oppressing and persecuting governors, in your patience possess your souls; trust God and keep your innocency, and abhor all thoughts of rebellion or revenge; he that believeth will not make haste. Do nothing but what God will own, and then commit yourselves and your way to him. Repress wrath, and hate unpeaceable counsels; our way and our time must be only God's way and time. Self-saving men are usually the destroyers of themselves and others. Peter, that drew his sword for Christ, denied him the same night, with oaths and curses. Fools trust themselves, and wise men trust God: fools tear the tree, by beating down the fruit that is unripe and harsh; and wise men stay till it is ripe and sweet, and will drop into their hands: fools rip up the mother for an untimely birth; but wise men stay till maturity give it them. Fools take red-hot iron to be gold, till it burn their fingers to the bone; they rush into seditions and blood, as if it were a matter of jest ; but wise sow the fruit of righteousness in peace, and as much as in them lieth, live peaceably with all men: all men are mortal, both oppressors and oppressed: stay a little, and mortality will change the scene; God's time is best. Martyrdom seldom killeth the hundredth part so many as wars do: and he is no true believer that taketh martyrdom to be his loss; and Christ is

men