still preserved, and become a great and a considerable people among the middle sort of thy numerous inhabitants. And notwithstanding the many difficulties without_and within, which they have laboured under, since the Lord God Eternal first gathered them, they are an increasing people, the Lord still adding unto them, in divers parts, such as shall be saved, if they persevere to the end. And to thee; were they and are they lifted up as a standard, and as a city set upon a hill, and to the nations round about thee, that in their light thou mayest come to see light, even in Christ Jesus, the light of the world; and therefore thy light, and life too, if thou wouldest but turn from thy many evil ways, and receive and obey it. For in the light of the Lamb, must the nations of them that are saved walk, as the Scriptures testify.

Remember, O nation of great profession! how the Lord has waited upon thee since the days of reformation, and the many mercies and judgments with which he has pleaded with thee; and awake and arise out of thy deep sleep, and yet hear (his word in thy heart) that thou mayest live.

Let not this thy day of visitation pass over thy head, nor neglect thou so great salvation as is this which is come to thy house, Oh England! For why shouldest thou die, Oh land that God desires to bless? Be assured it is he that has been in the midst of this people, in the midst of thee; and no delusion, as thy mistaken teachers have made thee believe. And this thou shalt find by their marks and fruits, if thou wilt consider them in the spirit of moderation. For,

I. They were changed men themselves before they went about to change others. Their hearts were rent as well as their garments; and they knew the power and work of God upon them. And this was seen by the great alteration it made, and their stricter course of life, and more godly conversation, that immediately followed upon it.

11. They went not forth or preached in their own time or will, but in the will of God, and spoke not their own studied matter, but as they were opened and moved of his Spirit, with which they were well acquainted in their own conversion; which cannot be expressed to carnal men so as to give them any intelligible account; for to such it is as Christ said, like the blowing of the wind, which no man knows whence it cometh, or whither it goeth: yet this proof and seal went along with their ministry, that many were turned from their lifeless professions, and the evil of their ways, to the knowledge of God, and an holy life, as thousands can witness. And as they freely received what

they had to say from the Lord, so they freely administered it to others.

III. The bent and stress of their ministry was conversion to God, regeneration and holiness; not schemes of doc trines and verbal creeds, or new forms of worship; but a leaving off in religion the superfluous, and reducing the ceremonious and formal part, and pressing earnestly the substantial, the necessary and profitable part; as all upon a serious reflection must and do acknowledge.

IV. They directed people to a principle by which all that they asserted, preached, and exhorted others to, might be wrought in them and known, through experience, to them to be true; which is a high and distinguishing mark of the truth of their ministry; both that they knew what they said, and were not afraid of coming to the test. For as they were bold from certainty, so they required conformity upon no human authority, but upon conviction, and the conviction of this principle, which they asserted was in them that they preached unto, and unto that directed them, that they might examine and prove the reality of those things which they had affirmed of it, and its manifestation and work in man. And this is more than the many ministries in the world pretend to. They declare of religion, say many things true, in words of God, Christ, and the Spirit, of holiness and heaven; that all men should repent and mend their lives, or they will go to hell, &c.; but which of them all pretend to speak of their own knowledge and experience? or ever directed men to a divine principle, or agent, placed of God in man, to help him, and how to know it, and wait to feel its power to work that good and acceptable will of God in them.

Some of them indeed have spoke of the Spirit, and the operations of it to sanctification, and performance of worship to God; but where and how to find it and wait in it to perform, was yet as a mystery reserved for this further degree of reformation. So that this people did not only in words more than equally press repentance, conversion, and holiness, but did it knowingly and experimentally; and directed those to whom they preached, to a sufficient principle, and told them where it is, and by what tokens they might know it, and which way they might experience the power and efficacy of it to their soul's happiness; which is more than theory and speculations, upon which most other ministries depend; for here is certainly a bottom upon which man may boldly appear before God in the great day of account.

V. They reached to the inward state and condition of

people, which is an evidence of the virtue of their principle, and of their ministering from it, and not their own imaginations, glosses or comments upon scripture: for nothing reaches the heart, but what is from the heart, or pierces the conscience, but what comes from a living conscience: insomuch as it hath often happened, where people have under secrecy revealed their state or condition to some choice friends for advice or ease, they have been so particularly directed in the ministry of this people, that they have challenged their friends with discovering their secrets, and telling the preachers their cases. Yea, the very thoughts and purposes of the hearts of many have been so plainly detected, that they have, like Nathaniel, cried out of this inward appearance of Christ, Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. And those that have embraced this divine principle have found this mark of its truth and divinity (that the woman of Samaria did of Christ when in the flesh, to be the Messiah,) viz. it had told them all that ever they did; showed them their insides, the most inward secrets of their hearts, and laid judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet, of which thousands can at this day give in their witness. So that nothing has been affirmed by this people of the power and virtue of this heavenly principle, that such as have turned to it have not found true, and more; and that one half had not been told to them of what they have seen of the power, purity, wisdom, mercy and goodness of God herein.

VI. The accomplishments with which this principle fitted, even some of the meanest of this people, for their work and service; furnishing some of them with an extraordinary understanding in divine things, and an admirable fluency and taking way of expression, which gave occasion to some to wonder, saying of them, as of their master, Is not this such a mechanic's son; how came he by this learning? as from thence others took occasion to suspect and insinuate they were Jesuits in disguise, who have had the reputation of learned men for an age past, though there was not the least ground of truth for any such reflection.

VII. That they rise low, and despised, and hated, as the primitive Christians did, and not by the help of worldly, wisdom or power, as former reformations in part did but in all things it may be said, this people were brought forth in the cross, in a contradiction to the ways, worship, fashion and customs of this world; yea, against wind and tide, that so no flesh might glory before God.

They could have no design to themselves in this work, thus to expose themselves to scorn and abuse, to spend

and be spent; leaving wife and children, house and land, and all that can be accounted dear to men, with their lives in their hands, being daily in jeopardy, to declare this primitive message, John i. 1. 5. revived in their spirits, by the good spirit and power of God, viz. That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all; and that he has sent his Son a light into the world to enlighten all men in order to salvation; and that they that say they have fellowship with God and are his children and people, and yet walk in darkness, viz. in disobedience to the light in their consciences, and after the vanity of this world, they lie and do not the truth. But that all such as love the light and bring their deeds to it, and walk in the light, as God is light, the blood of Jesus Christ his son should cleanse them from all sin.

VIII. Their known great constancy and patience in suffering for their testimony, in all the branches of it, and that, sometimes unto death, by beatings, bruisings, long and crowded imprisonments, and noisome dungeons. Four of them in New England dying by the hands of the executioner, purely for preaching amongst that people; besides banishments and excessive plunders and sequestrations of their goods and estates, almost in all parts, not easily to be expressed, and less to be endured, but by those that have the support of a good and glorious cause; re fusing deliverance by any indirect ways or means, as often as it was offered to them.

IX. That they did not only not show any disposition to revenge, when it was at any time in their power, but for gave their cruel enemies; shewing mercy to those that had none for them.

X. Their plainness with those in authority; not unlike the ancient prophets, not fearing to tell them to their faces of their private and public sins, and their prophecies to them of their afflictions and downfall, when in the top of their glory; also of some national judgments, as of the plague, and fire of London, in express terms, and likewise particular ones to divers persecutors, which accordingly overtook them, and which were very remarkable in the places where they dwelt, and in time they may be made public for the glory of God.

Thus reader, thou seest this people in their rise, principles, ministry, and progress, both their general and particular testimony, by which thou mayest be informed how and upon what foot they sprung and became so considerable a people. It remains next that I shew also their care, conduct and discipline, as a Christian and reformed So

ciety, that they might be found living up to their own principles and profession. And this, the rather, because they have hardly suffered more in their character from the unjust charge of error, than by the false imputation of disorder; which calumny indeed has not failed to follow all the true steps that were ever made to reformation, and under which reproach none suffered more than the primitive Christians themselves, that were the honour of Christianity, and the great lights and examples of their own and succeeding ages.

This people encreasing daily both in town and country, an holy care fell upon some of the elders among them, for the benefit and service of the church. And the first business in their view, after the example of the primitive saints, was the exercise of charity, to supply the necessities of the poor, and answer the like occasions: wherefore collections were early and liberally made for that and divers other services in the church, and entrusted with faithful men, fearing God, and of good report, who were not weary in well-doing; adding often of their own, in large proportions, which they never brought to account, or desired should be known, much less restored to them, that none might want, nor any service be retarded or disappointed.

They were also very careful that every one that belonged to them, answered their profession in their behaviour among men upon all occasions; that they lived peaceably, and were in all things good examples. They found themselves engaged to record their sufferings and services; and in case of marriage, which they could not perform in the usual methods of the nation, but among themselves, they took care that all things were clear between the parties and all others, and it was then rare that any one entertained such inclination to a person on that account, till he or she had communicated it secretly to some very weighty and eminent friends among them, that they might have a sense of the matter; looking to the counsel and unity of their brethren as of great moment to them: but because the charge of the poor, the number of orphans, marriages, sufferings and other matters multiplied, and that it was good that the churches were in some way and method of proceeding in such affairs among them, to the end they might the better correspond upon occasion, where a memher of one meeting might have to do with one of another: it pleased the Lord in his wisdom and goodness to open the understanding of the first instrument of this dispensation of life, about a good and orderly way of proceeding; and he felt an holy concern to visit the churches in person