Snake in the Grass - Preface

{Page 3.} QUAKERISM is but one branch of enthusiasm, though the most spread and infectious of any now known in this part of the world. Therefore let the frightful and stupendous prospect of Quakerism guard others from other sorts of enthusiasm, that seem more plausible, but spring all from the same stock, and draw after them the same damnable consequences. There seems to be a contest, at present, be twixt atheism and enthusiasm, (both which, like a deluge, are now let loose amongst us,) which shall most waste and overrun Christianity; the one by open enmity, the other by betraying and exposing to the utmost contempt the au thority of that divine revelation, while they pretend to have the same, or as good, themselves. These two, though seemingly opposite, do naturally run into and assist one another: for enthusiasm, or a false pretence to revelation, does naturally beget atheism, when those pretences are de tected: then such, having no other foundation, lose all, and think all other revelation to be as false and deceitful as what they took to be such in themselves. And the atheists take this handle to ridicule the true and pretended revela tions all alike. But enthusiasm is in this more dangerous than atheism, that atheism takes none but the unthinking and debauched, while enthusiasm steals away many devout and well-meaning persons. The Devil has not by any other means advanced his kingdom more fatally among men, than when he thus transforms himself into an angel of light, and can pass his delusions upon his unwary followers as the im mediate dictates of the Holy Ghost. In order to which, he is content to let them enjoy and please themselves with {Page 4} many excellent and divine truths: he could not otherwise deceive: as he that would pass some bad money, mixes it with a great deal of good; and poison would not be received, if it were not mingled with our meat.

There has lately arrived upon our shore a most exalted piece of enthusiasm, which threatens great mischief to Christianity: it is blasphemously entitled, The Light of the World; translated and recommended by some among ourselves, who ought to have had more sense and value for the religion of Christ. It is some of the works of a strange sort of enthusiast, Mrs. Antonia Bourignon, published by Mr. Christian de Cort, a Roman catholic, superior of the Oratory, and pastor of St. John at Mechlin; and now turned into English, an. 1696. There are in it great flights of devotion and abstraction from the world; but the cloven foot does appear: 1. In superlative and blasphemous pride; 2. In overturning all outward priesthood and ordinances of the gospel; 3. In the height of uncharitableness, and damn ing of all the world; 4. In misrepresenting the design and import of our Saviour's doctrine; 5. In heretical notions set up contrary to the gospel; 6. In her contempt of the holy scriptures; 7. In other wild and barbarous notions.

I intend not a thorough disquisition of all these and other particulars which are as gross in her pretended revelations; that would require a treatise; and because I hope the world will be soon obliged with an exact confutation of them by a better hand. But, for the present, I will give one instance or two upon each of the above particulars, that the reader may not be wholly postponed, and to give him a relish of those pestiferous heresies which are cloaked under her disguise of light.

(I.) As to her pride. In the Epistle to the English Reader, p.28, her bigoted disciple compares her, nay, prefers her, to the blessed Virgin, “that her own sex may admire,” says he, “the goodness of God, in choosing a virgin for his mother, and a virgin to be the organ of his light and Spirit in this last age of the world.” Now to be the organ of his light and Spirit is more than to be the organ or mother {Page 5} of his human body. It is told, p. 19, that she had immediate converse with God; that she asked questions of him, and received answers from him. P. 17. That all she did was by immediate direction from God; and that God had hid in her the treasures of his divine wisdom. And, p. 21, 22, that she spoke and wrote without premeditation and without change of sentiments for forty years. “The person who speaks here,” says the Admonition, p. 33, “is with out study, even without reading, and, which is more, without meditation.” And as the Quakers have equalled themselves to the holy prophets and apostles, and in some things preferred themselves before them, (as you will see hereafter, sect. v.) and exalt themselves far beyond all the holy fathers of the church, (see sect. xv.1, n. 2.) so did this Bourignon. Mons. de Cort, in his preface, p. 41, says, “She explained the scriptures so perfectly, that none of the holy fathers have ever so done, nor any body since the creation of the world.” This sets her above Christ himself, and her expositions of the scripture to be better than his. “I know the masterpieces,” says she, (part I. of her book, p. 137.) “of the works of God, and the accomplishment of the holy scriptures.” And yet De Cort says, p. 41 of his preface, that “she had never read nor learned them of any body.” She says of herself, p. 131, “God hath given me the understanding of all the holy scripture without having read it.” She says that she understood it better than all the ancient fathers. “It was enough,” says she, (p. 135,) “that they understood what men had need of then Therefore God now reveals the secrets which he would then have to be kept hid. (P. 136.) Thus he thought fit to reserve the understanding of the scriptures till the necessary time, which is at present The prophets have indeed declared all that must come to pass, even to the end of the world; but neither they themselves, nor any others, understood their sayings.” So that she understood the prophets' words better than themselves who wrote them, and though she never read them. But great wits have short memories; for, p. 13 of the {Page 6} Epistle to the English Reader, it is told, that she was the daughter of a rich man, and was taught to read in her child hood, and did read the gospels. And, p. 12 of her book, she says, that “we need only take the gospel, and there observe in particular the instructions which Jesus Christ and “his apostles have left us in writing, and put them in practice.” Yet she read none of it, no, not she! But that is not so great a wonder as what is told of her, p. 41 of Mons. de Cort's preface, “that she knew the secret thoughts of the hearts of others;” and, (p. 45,) “how our souls behaved themselves towards God;” which is the prerogativeof God alone. See hereafter the same claim set up by G. Fox, sect. vi. M. de Cort, p. 43 of his preface, frees her (like the Quakers) from all sin or weakness, and even from original sin, “as if,” says he, “Adam had never sinned in her.” And, p. 46 and 47, ad fin. “ that she exceeded all knowledge.” And, p. 7 of her book, she says, that she had never taken any thing out of books, and that she made no use of them;” no, not of the holy scriptures: but that she had all by immediate revelation.

(II.) As to the second point, of her overturning all out ward priesthood and ordinances of the gospel, see p. 54 of her book; where she condemns those outward devotions which are now in use in Christendom, and what those called churchmen teach, to resort to churches, to frequent the sa craments, and such outward things. Her disciples may make the same excuse for her which the Quakers do sometimes, that they are only so far against the outward institu tions of religion, as they hinder the inward and spiritual part. But this is only a deceit of the Devil, to make us throw off the outward institutions of Christ's appointment, as hurtful or useless things: whereas to the due observance of them the promises of spiritual participations are annexed: and they were ordained as means and channels whereby the spiritual graces of the Spirit of God are conveyed. And if any receive hurt by them, (as Judas by the sop,) it is from their want of preparation, and of due regard to them. And therefore, instead of despising, or laying them aside, Christians {Page 7} should be exhorted to attend them more diligently, and to learn the great benefit and advantage of them, when duly received, according to Christ's institution, and the heavy judgments which follow either the abuse or neglect of them, 1 Cor. xi. 29, 30.

Now though Bourignon agrees in this perfectly with the Quakers, to run down priesthood and sacraments, yet her translator, in his Epistle to the English Reader, p. 18, tells how she wrote against the Quakers upon these two points particularly, Of the respect due to pastors, and the sacraments. These enthusiasts are all contradiction to themselves, and opposite one to another. The great design of the Devil is, and has always been, to beat down the priesthood and out ward ordinances, knowing that religion must needs fall with them, and men be left fenceless and open, to steer without compass, guided only by the various winds of enthusiasm. In this cause he has armed the atheists and deists to join with the more plausible enthusiasts and latitudinarians. These all cry out upon priestcraft; this is the burden of their song: and if they, or any of them, should prevail, there is an end of revealed religion, that is, of Christianity.

(III.) The third point is this lady's uncharitableness, and damning of all the world. P. 21 of her book, she being asked, Whether there were not any good men or true Christians in our days? she answered positively, There are no true Christians upon earth. And, p. 37, That she had not as yet found so much as one person in the world who performed these works (i.e. of charity) purely for God. And, p. 45, she says, I cannot see how one soul can enter into paradise after the manner they live at present. And, p. 46, I have been acquainted with dif ferent persons, who were esteemed holy and virtuous; but I never observed any who followed truly the doctrine of Jesus Christ. And, p. 17, All the world is blinded, and nobody sees where he goes, no more than they who lived during the Egyptian darkness. Compare this with what I have shewn of the Quakers, sect. xvi.

(IV.) The fourth point. In misrepresenting the design and import of the gospel; which was to wean our hearts from this world, and to set our affections on things above, to cure our over-carking and caring after riches, and to root up all covetousness out of our hearts; but that we should trust in God for our support, and not to mammon: that though we make use of riches and the goods of this world, yet that we should not place our treasure in them. But this virgin so understands it, as if all use of riches were forbidden, (she might as well say of meat, drink, clothes, and houses,) and makes riches, without any more, an infallible sign of not being a Christian.

Thus, p. 7 of her book, when she asked, “Where was the land of the Christians?” she concluded that that could not be a land of Christians where she lived. Why? “Because,” says she, “I see here coffers full of silver, costly “furniture, and fine houses, whereas Jesus Christ was poor, and born in a stable. How can we be Christians? I cannot believe this.” And, p. 56, “We see,” says she, “the prelates attended with servants, coaches, and trains if they had faith to believe, that God being man was poor “ and despised, they would blush for shame (as all other “Christians) to make themselves thus to be honoured: their faith being dead, they run blindly to damnation.” So that, according to this doctrine, the prelates, and all other Christians, who have servants or coaches, or make themselves to be honoured, do all run blindly to damnation. This was the bottom upon which the Quakers first set up; to run down all worldly honour and riches to thee and thou; to call no man master or lord, and not to take off their hats, or bow to any. It is dissolving all government and order; the relations of king and people, husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants; and far from the import or meaning of the gospel, which does confirm and establish all these relations, and commands to give honour to those to whom it is due. But these pharisaical pretenders keep not to their own rules. For though the Quakers at first left their houses and families to run about and preach, and cry down riches, when they had none; yet since that {Preface 9} time they have griped mammon as hard as any of their neighbours, and now call riches a gift and blessing from God. And thus their cousin Bourignon, though she made riches a sure mark of damnation in others, yet she had a good estate herself, and had the grace to keep it. She built a sort of a nunnery with some part of it; and the Jesuits cheated her of more, which raised her spleen against them to her dying day. The rest she kept as long as she lived, and left it to a mad disciple of hers, Monsieur Poiret. If it be said, that sometimes she speaks in behalf of riches, and not to part with them, that is true; for she is as full of contradictions as the Quakers. Enthusiasm is seldom or never consistent with itself, for it is seated in the imagination.

W. And as she mistook the whole design and import of the gospel, so she miserably perverted its doctrine, and that in the most material and fundamental points. Falling in with the vile Socinian heresies, and even outdoing them, she absolutely denies, and disputes against any satisfaction made by the sufferings and death of Christ for the sins of men. She says positively, p. 139, that “ God had no need to become man to redeem us:” and that “he would have taken human flesh, though Adam had never sinned.” For what end? “Why (forsooth!) that he might converse with “us. God is not become man,” says she, “to suffer or to “ die, but to converse with us, and reign in us visibly and “sensibly upon earth.” And she endeavours to prove this (p. 140, 141) by two doughty arguments: 1. That “if the “ designed end of his incarnation had been suffering and death, the fathers of the ancient law would not have had ground to have so much desired and aspired after that happy day, that they might see with their eyes God made man, who should deliver them from their captivity. Could they desire their deliverance at so dear a price as the passion and death of Jesus Christ? They would have had a pure self-love in regarding only their own deliverance, and not the glory of God; which could not be met with “in the reproaches, affronts, pains, and death of Jesus “Christ; which are all things repugnant to his glory; who {Preface 10} “could not be honoured by being hanged between two ma “lefactors.” Here are all the cursed and truly diabolical suggestions against the passion and death of Christ; as if inconsistent with the justice and glory of God. I stay not here to confute them, as supposing them utterly abhorrent to every Christian ear: and I would not digress into another subject in this short preface, which is designed only to let the world see (those especially who are deluded by the zealous pretences of this devil of a saint to an extraordinary and exalted sort of devotion) what dreadful heresies and blasphemies are couched under her pharisaical show of piety. Far be it from thee, Lord, says she with Peter, Matt. xvi. 22. this (of sufferings and death) shall not be unto thee. And we may thence justly reply to her, as Christ to Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art an offence unto me: Jör thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Christ said, (John xii. 23.) speaking of his passion, The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. “But,” says Bourignon, “all these things are “repugnant to his glory.” It is written, (Luke xxiii. 46.) that it behoved Christ to suffer; and, ver. 26, that he ought to have suffered these things; and, Matt. xxvi. 39 and 54, that it was not possible the cup of his sufferings should pass jrom him ; and, that thus it must be, in order to the re demption of man. But Bourignon says, that “there was “no need of his becoming man to redeem us;” much less of his suffering. What account then does she give of his suffering P. She says, that was “only by accident;” and contrary to the design of his becoming man. “He became “man,” says she, p. 140, “not that he might suffer or die, “which he would needs do by accident, for the instruction “ of men, and their relief:” and, p. 142, that “ his coming in reproach is, as it were, the accident of the said designs,” i.e. of his incarnation: and that but for the “so great extremity of evil, Christ would not have come till the end “of the world to judge and condemn men;” not to save them, or suffer for them. “No,” says she, “he would have come in the glory of his majesty, with all his angels; not Preface 10} “in contempt and sufferings: he would have come to reign, “not to undergo an infamous death.” So that God’s de signs were hereby prevented and Christ suffered other wise than he intended ! merely by accident! See what hor rid and senseless blasphemy is here ! These inspirations came from the Devil, or otherwise all the scriptures are false. Christ says, (John xii. 27.) For this cause came I wnto this hour, i.e. of his suffering death: and he is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Rev. xiii. 8. i. e. decreed to be slain; yet Bourignon says, that “it was not his intention, only it fell out by accident;” and that “the designed end of his incarnation was not suffering “ and death:” for which you have heard her first reason. The second is, p. 141, that “so many holy prophets, who “have foretold the coming of Jesus in the flesh, did not “speak of his coming to suffer.” She has told us before that she had never read the scriptures, and now she gives a substantial proof of it; and that that spirit which she said gave her the perfect understanding of all the scripture, with out reading of it, was no other than the Devil, who has hid from her all the whole economy of the redemption of man by the death and sufferings of Christ; which are particu larly prophesied in the 53d chapter of Isaiah, and many other places, even by all the prophets. Acts ii. 18, God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer. And, Luke xxiv. 45, 46, He opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures; and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer. And, Matt. xxvi. 54, speaking of his rescuing himself from his sufferings; But how then, says he, shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be 2 Let this suffice to shew the dark, ignorant, and deluded enthusiasm of this celebrated maid, and to open the eyes of her much deceived admirers. Compare what I have quoted from her, of her throwing off the satisfaction of Christ, and the merit of his outward death and sufferings, with what I have shewn in this book of the Quakers, who dispute in the like manner against these, and place the merit and satisfaction {Preface 12} in the allegorical sufferings and blood of “their Light “within,” inwardly shed, &c.

(VI.) With them likewise she joins in the design of lead ing men from the use of the holy scriptures, to trust to the inward guidance of the same Spirit (as she and they say) which gave forth the scriptures, and therefore which needs not the help of the scriptures: that they leave only for young beginners, who have not yet sufficiently experienced the leadings of the Spirit. She says, p. 132, “I have read sometimes transiently the New Testament, having obtain “ed permission of a certain bishop; but as soon as I began “to read, I perceived in what I read, all my sentiments explained; so that if I were to write the sentiments which “I carry within me, I should compose a book like that of “ the New Testament And it seeming to me that it would be useless to read what I did so sensibly possess, “I left off to read.” And, p. 133, “I know I cannot but “speak the truth, and also they who do not follow it, do “resist it.” This is like the Quakers equalling their own writings to the holy scriptures; and condemning all such of blasphemy, as opposers of God, who resist what they teach.

(VII.) But I will not anticipate the more thorough exa mination of Mrs. Bourignon, which I have given the reader ground to expect; only I have, in some things, compared her and her followers with the Quakers, as fellow-enthusiasts; and the one stands not upon better ground than the other. Let me but name two or three things more; and I will but name them. You will see hereafter, sect. II. how G. Fox says, that “Christ is not distinct from his saints;” that “Christ is the elect,” &c. Agreeable is Mrs. Bourg non's notion of the church, p. 45. “Jesus Christ,” says she, “and his church are the same thing: as Jesus Christ is no other but the Word of God, even so the church is no other but the same Word.” And, p. 53, “In short,” says she, “the church is God himself, who cannot fail or “ err.” Upon this account she takes the name of the church to herself and her followers, and, as such, aspires to infallibility {Page 13} bility, &c. as the Quakers, upon the same pretence, have done; and, like them, she sets up for prophecy too, and just as unluckily, to see them prove false. She tells Mons. de Cort, p. 144, “You may indeed live till then, sir,” (i. e. to Christ's coming in the clouds, when all the world shall see him ;) but she adds cautiously, “if God please.” But she is more positive, p. 17; “Believe me, sir,” says she, “there is nothing more true,” (i. e. than that the judgment was near at hand;) “we actually live in the last times; and “the judgment is so near, that before three years I believe “you will see the effects of it.” I will take leave of this lady at present, with shewing the Turks' paradise she ex pects in heaven, p. 168, literal eating and drinking in the kingdom of heaven. And, p. 169, this virgin would have human propagation likewise there: “Yes, sir,” says she to Mons. de Cort, who asked her the question, “there will be “propagation eternally; it will be produced more leisurely “ than in this world—that kingdom being of eternal dura “tion, will give time and leisure to propagate stayedly,” &c. Her contempt of human learning, and denying it even to Christ; repetition of baptism, and antichrist's being al ready born of the Devil; and other wild and extravagant notions, I leave to him who will, for the undeceiving of those who are deluded by her witchcraft, take more pains in this matter; and likewise consider with her her mad disciple Mons. Poiret, who, speaking of her to two gentlemen, (of my acquaintance,) said to them in these words, Tam certus sum illam virginem inspiratam esse quam Deum ea:istere; “That he was as sure that that virgin was inspired, “ as that God had a being.” He writes against God's fore knowledge, and says, that God knows not what sin is, though he forbids it. But I will not now begin with him. The man was actually crazed, and is still so reputed in the coun try where he lives; yet some here are taken with his books, who can swallow any poison, under the disguise of religion.

VIII. I have spent this preface upon the enthusiasm of Mrs. Bourignon, to give warning of the danger of it; and {Page 14} by comparing it with the rise and growth of the Quakers, to excite the watchmen of our religion not to neglect such small beginnings. G. Fox was much more inconsiderable than Antonia Bourignon, and got none, at the beginning, to follow him, but from among the poor and most ignorant of the herd; who have since swelled to a rich, a numerous, and a potent people, overspreading these three nations, and stocking whole plantations abroad; and their suckers have taken root both in Holland and Germany.

On the other hand, some men of sense and learning have already been carried away with the delusions of Bourignon. De Cort and Poiret have wrote in her defence abroad; and some at home (whom I am not willing to name) have been at the pains to translate some of her works into English, and they have already deceived not a few : therefore it is high time to look to it. The Quakers have grown by being neglected and despised. Let us remember, that the enemy sows his tares while the husbandmen sleep; and we have seen examples where a handbreadth of error has soon dark ened the whole heaven. The blood of souls is precious, and will be required from the watchmen, if they blow not the trumpet in time.

Enthusiasm has been the root of the greatest evils that have befallen the church. From this arose the popish le gends of their saints, which have almost overthrown the belief of the real miracles of Christ and his apostles: and from hence our several sorts of Dissenters took their rise, till they were once settled and established, and then wore off from it by degrees, because it would unsettle themselves. It is a perfect opposition to all rule or government; and there can be no order kept where it is admitted.

I would not be misunderstood, as if, by speaking against enthusiasm, I meant to destroy devotion, or even the great est flights and ecstasies of it: mo, let these rise as high as they can; the higher the better; while we keep within the rule of scripture, and are content to let all our notions be tried and judged by that. But if we prefer our own ima ginations, or equal them to the holy scriptures of God, (as {Preface 15} Fox and Bourignon did,) and think them as much the in spiration of God as what was dictated, as such, to the holy prophets and apostles, this is enthusiasm, the enthusiasm against which I contend: for I have sufficiently distinguish ed and guarded (in sect. xxii.) the divine from the dia bolical enthusiasm. And though they appear sometimes so very like one another, that even sober and learned men do mistake the one for the other, and cannot discover Satan through his disguise of light; yet there are some marks, which, if we look diligently, will plainly enough shew whence such inspirations come.

(1.) As first, those which come from God fill us with humility, and discover to us our own weakness and unworthi ness, and withal a great charity for others, being more apt to have a good opinion of them than of ourselves, as know ing our own infirmities more than those of others; as the apostle speaks, (Phil. ii. 3.) in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Thus the great apostle was so far from magnifying himself, notwithstanding of his great revelations which were given to him, being caught up to the third heaven, and heard unspeakable words; yet would not glory, but in his infirmities, 2 Cor. xii. 5; and in great humility of soul owns himself as the chief of sin ners, 1 Tim. i. 15. But, on the other hand, those inspira tions which come from the Devil fill us with spiritual pride, thinking our own attainments to be beyond those of other men; and that we are nearer to God than they : we thank God (with the proud pharisee, Luke xviii. 11.) that we are not as other men are. Hence we despise others, and are apt to censure them even unto hell; to which the Quakers and Bourignon have damned all but themselves. (See here after, sect. xvi.) And, at the same time, advance them selves equal to the holy prophets and apostles, nay, to God himself, (see sect. iii.) This is a sure mark whereby to discover the inspirations of the Devil, and so distinguish them from those which come from the holy Spirit of God. The spirit of pride can act humility the worst of any other grace; can put on great show of devotion, and possess the {Preface 16} imagination with even rapturous flights, and thence fire the heart with a mighty zeal, if it were to give all their goods to feed the poor, and their very bodies to be burned. But you will find no charity there, no humility, no kind thoughts and favourable allowances to others, no mean opinion of themselves. Charity believeth all things that are good, or can be well construed of another; beareth all things that others do with a condescension and love insuperable, which overcometh evil with good. These are virtues too divine for the Devil to imitate; or, when he does, it is with so ill a grace, so contrary to him, that he cannot conceal such an awkwardness, a loathness, an unnatural force upon himself, as discovers itself to any discerning eye.

(2.) Another sure mark of his inspirations is, when, under the sheep's clothing of devotion and piety, any heresy is in stilled contrary to the truth of the gospel: of which I have given some instances in Bourignon, and more (but there are not more, or more gross) in the Quakers.

(3.) A third mark I give, (and then I have done,) which is that St. Paul insists so much upon, to cure the great schism in the church of Corinth, occasioned by the pride of some, upon whom (in that plentiful effusion of the Spirit at the first beginning of the gospel) several miraculous gifts had been bestowed, as of languages, healing, &c. Upon which they grew so vain, as to refuse subjection to their superiors in the church, and to set up for themselves, draw ing many after them into an open and flagrant schism. Against these St. Paul argues with admirable eloquence and force of reason, in the 12th chapter of his First Epistle to these Corinthians, where, from a parallel of the unity of the body, and harmony of the members, he shews, that the highest spiritual gifts, if they were made use of to cause a schism in the church, lose all their virtue, and become hurtful and pernicious to those who had them : and thence makes his inference in the 13th chapter, that the greatest gifts that could be imagined, though to speak with the tongue of men and angels, to understand all mysteries, and all knowledge and faith, even to remove mountains; nay, {Preface 17} such a zeal as to give all our goods to the poor, and our bodies to be burned for our religion: that all this would signify nothing to us, if we keep not in the unity of the body, which is the church; if we have not that concern for the unity of the body, (which the apostlejustly calls by the name of charity, i.e. love to the body,) as to be content with our station as members, though never so eminent, as an eye, or a hand, without making a schism in the body, by withdraw ing our due subjection to the head, our spiritual governors, who are the principles of unity in the body, next and im mediately under Christ, the only supreme and universal Bishop and Head of his church, whom every bishop, in his own church, does immediately represent. And therefore, as St. Ignatius oftentimes urges it, whoever does not keep outward communion with his bishop, the visible head, does thereby forfeit his inward communion with Christ, the now invisible to us, and only supreme Head. This schism, which some of these spiritually gifted men had made from their respective bishops, and which then began to spread in the church, was the occasion of St. Ignatius (who was cotem porary with the apostles) his insisting so largely and so ear nestly, in his Epistles to the several churches, upon the due and necessary obedience of all, as well the presbyters and deacons, as the laity, to their respective bishops, as to Christ himself, whose person they did represent. The same is in sisted upon in the Epistles of St. Clement to the same Co rinthians, upon the same occasion of their schism as St. Paul wrote to them, wherein he shews them at large, that all pro ceeded from their pride in their own gifts, and how little reason this was for them to make a schism in the church.

And now, reader, stay and admire, that, if even miracu lous gifts were not a sufficient pretence for any to advance himself above his bishop, or withdraw from under his go vernment; yet, in our days, we have seen men rebel against them, and break the unity of the church, upon pretence of being gifted men, though masters of no more sense than their neighbours, only from a fiery zeal, and volubility of cant: whereas, were their gifts even what they pretend, and much {Page 18} greater, yet, by the sentence of St. Paul, St. Clement, whose name is in the book of life, (Phil. iv. 3.) St. Ignatius, and all the holy fathers, this were no excuse at all for them to withdraw their obedience to their lawful bishops, much less to set up in opposition to them, and tear the body of the church by schism.

It is hereafter observed, that the holy prophets sent from God to reprove the wickedness of the priests, as well as people of the Jews; yet set not up opposite altars to the altars of those wicked priests, nor invaded their office.

So that were our dissenters such prophets as they call themselves, yet this would give them no authority to set up opposite altars to their bishops.

Corruptions in the church are better amended by living in the communion of the church; and there, by exhorting, admonishing, and shewing good example, to reclaim, than by open desertion to set up opposite factions, which heightens the animosities, imbitters the spirits, renders them deaf to one another's advices, and oft proceeds to blood and slaughter; which lays waste whole kingdoms, and gives the enemy the greatest opportunity to sow his tares in the heat and confusion of schism and rebellion, which we sadly ex perienced in the late bloody revolution of forty-one; where in (besides the murder of the king, destruction of many noble families, the havoc and desolation of three flourishing kingdoms) there arose thirty or forty different and opposite sects and heresies, more abhorrent to the presbyterians (who begat them, and begun that rebellion) than episcopacy it self, against which they first took arms. These, like the spawn of the viper, ate into the bowels of their mother, and destroyed her who gave them birth: so much did the re medy prove worse to her than the disease. I wish that they, that we, that all may take warning; that, instead of wild enthusiasm, we may come to learn the sobriety of religion: in which let us heighten our zeal and divine enthusiasm, to adhere strictly to the revealed rule of scripture; to have a flaming charity for the good of the body, and the unity of the church; that our enthusiasm may tend to heal, {Preface 19} and not to divide; to advance the glory of God, and to humble ourselves in our own conceits; that we may be will ing cheerfully to submit ourselves to our superiors both in church and state; and not be so apt to judge others as to censure ourselves. And then, though we had different opin ions, yet we should have no schism: we should live together as members of the same body; that though one were more honourable or useful than another, yet there would be no strife, no emulation, but which should exceed most in mutual good offices, and care for the whole: such a heaven we should see, if we had no schism; and we had had no schism but for enthusiasm; and there is no enthusiasm where there is not pride; which being dressed in the garb and guise of humility, is literally the Devil transformed into an angel of light; and then he is most a devil, because he can most de ceive. This is the snake in the grass which I have endea voured to discover. Pray God accept my labours, and make them useful to my brethren.