the interest of their opinions and parties, have cherished dissension, and fled from concord, and have had a hand in the resisting and pulling down authority, and embroiling the nations in wars and miseries. And whence is it but for want of self-denial, (for our own faults must be confessed) that the ministers of Christ are so much silent in the midst of such heinous miscarriages as the times abound with? I know we receive not our commission as prophets did, by immediate, extraordinary inspiration: but what of that? The priests that were called by an ordinary way, were bound to be plain and faithful in their office, as well as the prophets; and so are we. How plainly spoke the prophets, even to the king! and how patiently did they bear indignities and persecutions! But now we are grown carnally wise and cautelous; (for holy wisdom and caution I allow ;) and if duty be like to cost us dear, we can think that we are excused from it. If great men would set up popery in the land by a toleration, alas! how many ministers think they may be silent, for fear lest the contrivers should call them seditious, or turbulent, or disobedient, or should set men to rail at them and call them liars and calumniators; or for fear they should be persecuted, and ruined in their estates and names. If they do but foresee that men in power and honour in the world will charge them with lies or unchristian dealing for speaking the words of truth and soberness against the introduction of popery and impiety, and that they shall be made as the scorn and offscouring of all the world, and have all manner of evil sayings falsely spoken of them for the sake of Christ, his church and truth, they presently consult with flesh and blood, and think themselves discharged of their duty; when God saith, "If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand;" Ezek. xxxiii. 6. And were we no watchmen, yet we have this command, "Thou shall not hate thy brother in thy heart; thou shalt in anywise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him;" Lev.xix.17. Yet now many ministers will be cruelly silent, lest they should be charged with malice, and hating those they are commanded to rebuke. The sword of violence I persuade them not to meddle with ; but were it not for want

of self-denial, the sword of the Spirit would be more faithfully managed against the sins of the greatest enemies of Christ and of the Gospel, than it is by most, though it should cost us more than scorns and slanders, and though we knew that bonds and afflictions did abide us.

And verily, I cannot yet understand, that the contempt and scorn of the ministry in England is fed by any thing so much as selfishness. Could we be for all men's opinions and carnal interests, (O what experience have I had of this!) all men, for aught I see, would be for us. Is it a crime to be a minister? Doubtless it is then a crime to be a Christian. And he that rails at us as ministers to-day, it is like will rail at us as Christians to-morrow. But if such will vouchsafe to come to me, before they venture their souls, and soberly debate the case, I will undertake to prove the truth of Christianity. The world may see in Clem. Writer's exceptions against my "Treatise against Infidelity," what thin transparent sophisms, and silly cavils, they use against the Christian cause". When they have well answered, not only that treatise, but Du Plessis, Grotius, Vives, Ficinus, Micrelius, and the ancient apologies of the Christian writers of the church, let them boast then that they have confuted Christianity. The devil hath told me long ago in his secret temptations, as much against the Christian faith, as ever I yet read in any of our apostates; but God hath told me of much more that is for it, and enabled me to see the folly of their reasonings, that think the mysteries of the Gospel to be foolishness.

But if it be not as ministers and Christians that we are hated, what is it then? If because we are ignorant, insufficient, negligent or scandalous, why do they not by a legal trial cast us out, and put those in our places that are more able, diligent and godly, when we have provoked them to it and begged it of them so often as we have done? If it be because we are not Papists, it is because we cannot renounce all our senses, our reason, the Scripture, the unity, judgment and tradition of the far greatest part of the universal

b See my Reasons of the Christian Religion, since written.

I may, with Tertullian, call all our enemies to search their court records, and see how many of us have been cast out or silenced for any immorality, but for obeying conscience against the interest, or wills, of some who think that conscience should give place to their commands. Read the two or three last chapters in Dr. Holden's Anal, fidei.

church. If I have not already proved that popery fighteth against all these, and am not able to make it good against any Jesuit on earth, let them go on to number me with heretics, and let them use me as they do such, when I am in their power. If we are hated because we are not of the opinions of those that hate us, it seems those opinions are enemies to charity; and then we have little reason to embrace them. And if this be it, we are under an unavoidable necessity of being hated: for, among such diversity of opinions, it is impossible for us to comply with all, if we durst be false to the known truth, and durst become the servants of men, and make every self-conceited brother the master of our faith. If we are so reviled, because we are against an universal liberty of speaking or writing against the truths and ways of Christ, and of labouring in Satan's harvest, to the dividing of the churches, and the damnation of souls, it is then in the upshot, because we are of any religion, and are not despisers of the Gospel, and of the church, ánd of men's salvation; and because we believe in Jesus Christ. I have lately found by their exclamations, and common defamations, and threatenings, and by the volumes of reproaches that come forth against me, and by the swarms of lies that have been sent forth against me through the land, that even the present contrivers of England's misery, (liberty, I would say) and of toleration for popery, and more, are themselves unable to bear contradiction from one such an inconsiderable person as myself; and they have got it into the mouths of soldiers, that my writings are the cause of wars, and that till I give over writing, they shall not give over fighting (though I do all that I am able for peace d). And if this be so, what a case would they bring the nation into, by giving far greater liberty to all, than ever I made use of! Unless they still except a liberty of contradicting themselves, they must look for other kind of usage, when libertinism is set up. Yea, if they will seek the ruin of the church and cause of Christ, they must look that we should take liberty to contradict them, and to speak for Christ and

d Read Mr. Stubbs's and Mr. Rogers's books against me; and the soldiers openly thus calumniated me and threatened my death, as the said authors desired them to call me to a trial, even for speaking and writing against their casting down the government of the land, and setting up themselves, and attempting at once to vote out all the parish ministers.

the souls of men, till they have deprived us of tongues, or pens, or lives; and they must expect that we obey God rather than men, and that, as Paul did Peter (Gal. ii. 11.), we withstand them to the face; and that satan shall not be unresisted, because he is transformed into an angel of light; nor his ministers be unresisted, because they are transformed into the ministers of righteousness; nor the false apostles and deceitful workers, because they are transformed into the apostles of Christ; 2 Cor. xi. 13-15. Nor must they think to do so horrid a thing, as to weave their libertinism, and toleration of popery, into a new fundamental constitution of the commonwealth, which parliaments must have no power to alter, and that the ages to come shall curse us for our silence, and say that ministers and other Christians were all so basely selfish, as for fear of reproaches or sufferings to say nothing, but cowardly to betray the Gospel with their country *. If the rattling of the hail of persecution on the tiles, even on this flesh, which is but the tabernacle of our souls, be a terrible thing; how much more terrible is the indignation of the Lord, and the threats of him who is a consuming fire! If you can venture your life against an enemy in the field, we are bastards, and not Christians if we cannot venture ours, and give them up to persecuting rage, as long as we know that we have a master that will save us harmless, and that the God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and that he hath charged us not to fear them that kill the body, and after that can do no more, &c.; and that he hath told us that we are blessed when men revile us and persecute us, and say all manner of evil against us falsely for his sake; bidding us, "rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is our reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets that were before us;" Matt. v. 10-12. And when we are told that "he that will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life, for the sake of Christ, shall find it ;" Matt. xvi. 25. And when we know that we own a cause that shall prevail at last, and resist them "whose end shall be according to their works;" 2 Cor. xi. 15.

And what though this be unknown to the opposers; that will not warrant us to betray a cause that we know to be of

* I know that it hardeneth thousands in impenitency, to say that others have done worse; and is the matter mended with you? And will it also ease men in hell to think that some others suffer more?

God; nor will the ignorance of others excuse us for neglecting known truth and duty. If the souls of private persons be worth all the study and labour of our lives, and we must deal faithfully with them, whatever it shall cost us; surely the safety of a nation, and the hopes of our posterity, and the public interest of Christ, is worthy to be spoken for with much more zeal, and we may suffer more joyfully, for contradicting a public destroyer of the church, than for telling a poor drunkard or whoremonger of his sin and misery.

Hitherto I have permitted my pen to express my sense of the common want of self-denial in the land now give me leave, as your most affectionate, faithful friend, to turn my style a little to yourself, and earnestly to entreat of you these following particulars.

I. In general that as long as you live you will watch against this common deadly sin of selfishness, and study continually the duty of self-denial. We shall be empty of Christ, till we are nothing in ourselves. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Selfis the strongest and most dangerous enemy that ever you fought against. It is a whole army united; and the more dangerous because so near. Many that have fought as valiantly and successfully against other enemies as you, have at last been conquered and undone by self. And conquer it you cannot without a conflict; and the conflict must endure as long as you live; and combating is not pleasing to the enemy; and therefore as long as self is the enemy, and self-pleasing is natural to corrupted man, (that should be wholly addicted to please the Lord), self-denial will prove a difficult task and if somewhat in the advice that would engage you deeper in the conflict, should seem bitter or ungrateful, I should not wonder. And let me freely tell you, that your prosperity and advancement will make the work so exceeding difficult, that since you have been a Major General, and a Lord, and now a Counsellor of State, you have stood in a more slippery, perilous place, and have need of much more grace and vigilancy, than when you were but Baxter's friend. Great places and employments have great temptations, and are great avocations of the mind from God. And no error scarcely can be small, that is committed in public, great affairs; which the honour of God, and the temporal and spiritual welfare of so many, do in some sort