and serve for nothing else but either to facilitate our return to Popery, or to hide the defects of better knowledge, and to set off the pomp of prelacy.' As a specimen of his style and manner, I extract a few paragraphs:

"Sir,-Amidst those deep and retired thoughts, which, with every man, Christianly instructed, ought to be most frequent, of God, and of his miraculous ways and works amongst men, and of our religion and works, performed to him; after the story of our Saviour Christ, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in the flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of glory in the spirit, which drew up his body also, till we, in both, be united to him, in the revelation of his kingdom: I do not know of any thing, to take up the whole passion of pity on the one side, and joy on the other, than to consider, first, the foul and sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age, the long deferred but much more wonderful and happy reformation of the Church in these latter days." Speaking of the Popish corruptions, he thus satirizes them: "They hallowed it, [religion,] they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedeck't it, not in robes of pure innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and guegaws, fetched from Aaron's old warehouse, or the Flamin's Vestry; there was the Priest sent to con his motions, and

his postures, his Liturgies, and his Lurries, till the soul, by this means of embodying herself, given up justly to fleshly delights, bent her wing apace downward; and finding the ease she had from her visible and sensuous colleague, the body, in the performance of religious duties, her pinions now broken and flagging, shifted off from herself the labour of high-soaring any more, forgot her heavenly flight, and left the dull and droyling carcass to plod on in the old road, and drudging trade of outward conformity."

He thus describes Wicklif's preaching, "at which," he says, "all the succeeding reformers more effectually lighted their tapers;" who "was to his countrymen a short blaze, soon dampt and stifl'd by the Pope and prelates for six or seven kings' reigns."

Το prove that the Reformation owed nothing to the Prelates, he says: "And for the Bishops, they were so far from any such worthy attempts, as that they suffered themselves to be the common stiles to countenance, with their prostituted gravities, every politick fetch that was then on foot, as oft as the potent statists pleased to employ them. To bring down the Protector, [Somerset,] LATIMER was employed to defame him with the people; who else, 'twas thought, would take ill the innocent man's death, unless the reverend bishop could assure them there was no foul play."

"As for the queen herself," (Elizabeth,) he says, "she was made believe, that, by putting down Bishops, her prerogative would be infringed; and why the Prelates laboured, it should be so thought, ask not them, but ask their bellies. They had found a good tabernacle; they sate under a spreading vine; their lot was fallen in a fair inheritance."

"To the votaries of antiquity," he says, "I think I shall have fully answered, if I shall be able to prove out of antiquity, first, that if they will conform our Bishops to the purer times, they must mow their feathers, and their pounces, and make but curb-tailed bishops of them; and we know they hate to be dockt and clipt, as much as to be put down outright. Secondly, that those poorer times were corrupt, and their books corrupted; save often, thirdly, that the best of those that then wrote, disclaim that any man should repose on them, and send all to the scriptures."

"Then flourished the church," says he, "with Constantine's wealth; and therefore were the effects that followed: his son Constantius proved a flat Arian, and his nephew Julian an apostate; and there his race ended. The church, that before, by insensible degrees, walked and impaired, now with large steps, went downhill, decaying; at which time, Antichrist began first to put forth his horn, and that saying was common, that former times

had wooden chalices and golden priests, but they golden chalices and wooden priests."

The second book on Reformation begins thus:

66

Sir, It is a work, good and prudent, to be able to guide one man; of larger extended virtue, to order well one house; but to govern a nation piously and justly, which only is to say happily, is for a spirit of the greatest size and the divinest mettle.

"Now for their second conclusion,-That no form of church government is agreeable to Monarchy, but that of Bishops; although it fall to pieces of itself, by that which hath bin said; yet, to give them play, front and rear, it shall be my task to prove that Episcopacy, with that authority which it challenges in England, is not only not agreeable, but tending to the destruction of monarchy.".

As a proof of the pious spirit which he manifested in writing this work, take the following most scriptural prayer; containing, as the reader will perceive, distinct addresses to each person in the ever blessed Trinity in Unity. "Thou therefore that sitst in light and glory unapproachable, Parent of angels and men! Next, Thee I implore, Omnipotent King, Redeemer of that lost remnant, whose nature thou didst assume; ineffable and everlasting Love! And Thou, the third subsistence of Divine Infinitude, Illuminating Spirit, the joy

and solace of created things, One tri-personal Godhead, look upon this, thy poor, and almost spent and expiring church; leave her not thus a prey to those importunate wolves, that wait and think long, till they devour thy tender flock; these wild boars that have broken into thy vineyard, and left the prints of their polluted hoofs upon the souls of thy servants. O let them not bring about their damned designs, that stand now at the entrance of the bottomless pit, expecting the watchword, to let out those dreadful locusts and scorpions, to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of infernal darkness, where we shall never more see the Sun of thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more hear the bird of morning sing. Be moved with pity at the afflicted state of this our shaken monarchy, that now lies labouring under her throes, and struggling against the grudges of more dreadful calamities."

It is gratifying to hear him thus state the purity of his motives in this admirable work. "And herewithal I invoke the immortal DEITY, reveler and judge of hearts, that wherever I have in this BOOK, plainly and roundly (though worthily and truly) laid open the faults of Fathers, Martyrs, or Christian Emperors; or have otherwise inveighed against error and superstition, with vehement expressions; I have done it, neither out of malice, nor lust to speak evil, nor any vain glory,