pierced, and to mourn for it. Now every word, thought and deed, was brought to judgment, the root examined, and its tendency considered; and by knowing the evil leaven and its evil effects in ourselves, we came to have a sense and knowledge of the states of others; the present honours and respects of the world became burdensome to us; we saw they had no being in paradise, that they grew in the night time and came from an evil root; that they only delighted a vain and ill mind, and that much pride and folly was in them. We honour those that are placed in authority over us; our parents, our masters, our magistrates, our landlords, one another; yea all men after God's way used by holy men and women of old time but we cannot esteem bows, titles, : and pulling off of hats to each other, to be real honours, because such like customs have been prohibited by God, his Son and servants in days past. Christ said to the Jews, how can ye believe that receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh from God only; and charged his disciples, be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your master even Christ, and all ye are brethren. Neither be ye called master, but he that is greatest among you, shall be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased. These passages carry a severe rebuke both to worldly honour in general, and to those members and expressions of it in particular, which as near as the language of scripture and customs of that age will permit, do distinctly reach and allude to those of our own time. Our non-conformity to the world in using the word thou for you when addressing an individual, hath the same original as the foregoing. Words of themselves are but as so many marks set and employed for necessary and intelligible mediums whereby men may understandingly express their minds and conceptions to each other though the world be divided into many nations, each of which for the most part has its peculiar language or dialect, yet they have ever concurred in the same numbers and persons, as forming much of the ground of right speech. Thou and thee when speaking to one, and ye or you to more than one, is according to plain grammar rule, and it would be impossible to preserve numbers if you be used to express one. But it is a most extravagant piece of pride in a mortal man to require or expect from his fellow creature a more grateful language than he is wont to give to the immortal God his Creator, in all his worship to him; since we are persuaded that its original was from pride and flattery we cannot use it. 1 And however we may be censured as singular, by those loose and airy minds, that consider not the true rise and tendency of words and things, yet to us whom God has convinced by his light and spirit in our hearts, of the folly and evil of such courses, and brought into a spiritual discerning of the nature and ground of the world's fashions, they appear to be the fruits of pride and flattery; and we dare not continue in such vain compliances to earthly minds lest we of fend God and burden our own consciences, knowing assuredly that for every idle word that men speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment. Frequent waiting in stillness on the Lord for renewal of strength, keeps the mind at home in its proper place and duty, and out of all unprofitable conversation and converse, whether amongst those of our own or other professions. Much hurt may accrue to the religious mind by long and frequent conversation on temporal matters, especially by interesting ourselves unnecessarily in them; for there is a leaven in that propensity, which, being suffered to prevail, indisposes and benumbs the soul, and prevents its frequent ascendings in living aspirations towards the Fountain of eternal life. Whatever exercises we may meet with on account of a faithful testimony to the truth in all godliness of conversation, and to the end that we may not faint in our minds, let us consider the captain of our salvation, who endured the contradiction of sinners, bearing his cross and despising |