repute for religion; and many of them of good capacity, substance, and account among men.

And also some among them neither wanted for parts, learning, nor estate; though then, as of old, not many wise, nor noble, &c. were called, or at least received the heavenly call; because of the cross that attended the profession of it in sincerity; but neither do parts or learning make men the better Christians, though the better orators and disputants; and it is the ignorance of people about the divine gift, that causes that vulgar and mischievous mistake. Theory and practice, expression and enjoyment; words and life; are two things. Oh! it is the penitent, the reformed, the lowly, the watchful, the selfdenying and holy soul that is the Christian; and that frame is the fruit and work of the Spirit, which is the life of Jesus; whose life, though hid in God the Father, is shed abroad in the hearts of them that truly believe. Oh! that people did but know this to cleanse them, to circumcise them, to quicken them, and to make them new creatures indeed; re-created or regenerated after Christ Jesus unto good works; that they might live to God and not to themselves; and offer up living prayers and living praises, to the living God, through his own living Spirit, in which he is only to be worshipped in this gospel day. Oh! that they that read me could but feel me ; for my heart is affected with this merciful visitation of the Father of Lights and Spirits, to this poor nation, and the whole world, through the same testimony. Why should the inhabitants thereof reject it? Why should they lose the blessed benefit of it? Why should they not turn to the Lord with all their hearts, and say from the heart, Speak Lord, for now thy poor servants hear?" Oh! that thy will may be done, thy great, thy good and holy will in earth as it is in heaven: do it in us, do it upon us, do what thou wilt with us, for we are thine and desire to glorify thee our Creator, both for that, and because thou art our Redeemer; for thou art redeeming us from the earth; from the vanities and pollutions of it, to be a peculiar people unto thee. Oh! this were a brave day for England, if so she could say in truth. But alas, the case is otherwise, for which some of thine inhabitants, O land of my nativity! have mourned over thee with

bitter wailing and lamentation. Their heads have been indeed as waters, and their eyes as fountains of tears, because of thy transgression and stiffneckedness; because thou wilt not hear, and fear, and return to the Rock, even thy Rock, O England! from whence thou wert hewn. But be thou warned, O land of great profession, to receive him into thy heart; behold at that door it is, he hath stood so long knocking, but thou wilt yet have none of him. Oh! be thou awakened, lest Jerusalem's judgments do swiftly overtake thee, because of Jerusalem's sins that abound in thee. For she abounded in formality, but made void the weighty things of God's law, as thou daily doest.

She withstood the Son of God in the flesh, and thou resistest the Son of God in the Spirit. He would have gathered her as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and she would not; so would he have gathered thee out of thy lifeless profession, and have brought thee to inherit substance, to have known his power and kingdom, for which he often knocked within, by his grace and Spirit, and without by his servants and witnesses; but thou wouldst not be gathered. On the contrary, as Jerusalem of old persecuted the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh, and crucified him and whipped and imprisoned his servants; so hast thou, O land, crucified to thyself afresh the Lord of life and glory, and done despite to his Spirit of Grace; slighting the fatherly visitation, and persecuting the blessed dispensers of it by the laws and magistrates; though they have early and late pleaded with thee in the power and Spirit of the Lord; in love and meekness, that thou mightest know the Lord and serve him, and become the glory of all lands.

But thou hast evilly entreated and requited them. Thou hast set at naught all their counsel, and wouldst have none of their reproof, as thou shouldst have done. Their appearance was too strait, and their qualifications were too mean for thee to receive them; like the Jews of old, that cried, "Is not this the carpenter's son, and are not his brethren among us; which of the scribes, of the learned (the orthodox) believe in him?" prophesying their fall in a year or two, and making and executing severe laws to bring it to pass; by endeavouring

to terrify them out of their holy way, or destroying them for abiding faithful to it. But thou hast seen how many governments that rose against them, and determined their downfall, have been overturned and extinguished, and that they are still preserved, and become a great and a considerable people among the middle sort of thy numerous inhabitants. And notwitstanding 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 wouldst 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; 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 shouldst 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.

II. They went not forth, or preached in their own time or
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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 doctrines 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 they 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 ministers in the world pretended 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 spoken of the Spirit, and the operations of it to sanctification, and the performance of worship to God; but where and how to find it, and wait in it to perform this duty 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 speculation, upon which most other ministries depend; for here is certainty, -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 from 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 that 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 had done;" shown 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