ers, and oppressors of the poor; they strained at a gnat, and saw the mote in another's eye, condemning Christ and his apostles for not observing their ceremonies, while they saw not the beam of malignity and persecution in their own eye, but could swallow a camel, even these heinous sins: for their way was to honour the memorials of the martyrs, and to make more: to erect monuments for the dead saints whom their forefathers persecuted, and to go on to do the like by the living. (Matt. xxiii. 24. to the end.) They were the deadliest enemies of Christ, the silencers of his apostles, as far as they could, and the persecutors of Christians. And now I pray you tell me, who are the pharisees?

El. But you leave out that which is against you: they devoured widows' houses, and, for a pretence, made long prayers; and so do you.

P. I pray, Sir, tell me what widow's house I have devoured, and I promise you to restore it quickly. Do I oppress my tenants, as I before described to you? Have I any house but a mean one that I dwell in? Am I not fain to take up with the common jail, when your worship sends me thither for preaching? And as for long prayers I have two questions to put to you. 1. Was it the length of prayer, or the false pretence, which Christ reproved? If the length, why did he continue all night in prayer himself who had less need than I? (Luke vi. 12.) Why are we bid pray continually, and continue instant in prayer. (1 Thess. v. 17; Rom. xii. 12; Col. iv. 2.)

El. No it was the false pretence that was blamed.

:

P. Was it not a proof that long prayer is a thing very good and laudable, when sincerely used? Else it would not have made a cloak for sin; for one evil is not a fit covering for another. My second question is, whether the pharisees' long prayers were free prayers, uttered from the habits of the mind, or forms of liturgy?

El. I think they were such as your extemporate prayers.

P. Then you will wound the cause of liturgies, which I would not have you do ; for if the pharisees, that were so ceremonious, used none, it will scarce be probable that any were used in the Jewish church.

El. Well, then, suppose them to be set liturgies.

P. It is they, then, that are likest to the pharisees, who by long liturgies cloak their oppressions and covetousness.

El. You are noted to be as covetous a sort of people as any:

you will cheat a man in bargaining, and you will not swear; but you will lie like devils.

P. I assure you, sir, if we do so, it is contrary to our doctrine: for we profess that such persons are no children of God, nor can be saved in such a state. Therefore you must prove it against the particular persons whom you accuse. For if we know of such, we number them with wicked men, and bring them to repentance and restitution, or excommunicate them.

And for those ministers that are called puritans by you, whether they are in the right or wrong, I meddle not. But, 1. If they be so covetous, how come they these many years to live in pinching poverty, (except a few that have something of their own, or live in other men's houses,) and all to avoid that which they think is sin? 2. And if they are such liars, why do they not escape all their suffering? If they durst but once lie under their hands, and say that they assent and consent to what they do not, they might be as free as others.

El. There are as many villanies committed secretly among you as among others. Our faults are open, and known to all; but you are as bad in corners, as demurely as you carry it. Did you not hear lately of a great professor near you that was drunk, and another that got his servant-maid with child? This is your profession. If the truth might be known, on my conscience you are all alike.

P. Your own tongue still confuteth you, and honoureth those whom you would fain reproach. If you sin openly, it seemeth you are not ashamed of it; you tell us that it is no wonder among you, as if it were your profession: if we sin secretly, how do you know it? Your naming one or two defamations, implieth that with such as you mean, it is a rarity and strange thing. And slanders are so common against such persons, that when it is examined, it is two to one but it proves false. But if it be true, either the acts you mention are marvels, committed by one of a hundred, once perhaps in all their lifetime since their change; or else they are such as you describe that live secretly in such sin. If it be the latter, they are hypocrites, and such as we call to repentance and conversion, as being in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity; and all that I desire of you and your tenant here is, that you will not be such. If you like such, why do you blame them? If you dislike them, why will you be such yourselves? If you say that you make

1Isa. iii. 9. Jer. vi. 15, and viii. 12.

no profession of religion, I answer again; unless you renounce Christ, you profess as much as the hypocrites named by you. for you profess Christianity, and they profess no more.

But if they were the falls of serious Christians, I ask you, which is the likelier sort of men to be true Christians, they that live impenitently and commonly in gross sin, and hate those that reprove them and live better; or they that live blamelessly in the fear of God, save that one among many of them doth once in his life commit some heinous sin, which layeth him in such shame and brokenness of heart, that ofttimes such never well recover their comforts again while they live? If Noah was once drunk in his life; if there were one Ham in his family; if Lot was twice tempted to drunkenness and incest; if David once was guilty of odious sin; if Peter once, or thrice at once, denied his Master; if there were one Judas in the family of Christ himself; will any but the malicious thence conclude that they are all alike, or that one sin repented of is as bad as a life of sin never truly repented of?

And do you know what your slanderous inference doth import? No less than that Christ is no Christ, and that all the world shall be damned; for mark, I pray you, that we are certain that open unconverted sinners " are not saved from their sins by Christ; and that so dying they are lost for ever. Now you come in and say that the rest that profess repentance and obedience are in secret, and at the heart, as bad as they. And if so, they are all certainly lost men, for without holiness none shall see God; and the ungodly shall not stand in judgment; (Heb. xii. 14; Psalm i. 6;) and God hateth all the workers of iniquity. Now, to say that all are such, either openly or secretly, is to say that either God is a liar, or that no one shall be saved; and yet you are the man that cannot believe that many are damned: and if Christ sanctify and save none from their sins P he is no Saviour, and so no Christ.

But, sir, if you will search after such scandals, and bring such sins to open shame and punishment wheresoever they be found and proved, you shall have all our help and thanks, and you shall not cry down hypocrisy and scandal more heartily than we will do.

El. Fain would you seem pure and perfect, without sin, as the old Catharists pretended themselves to be.

m Psalm li.

• Psalm v. 5.

" Luke xiii. 3, 5, and xv.

P Matt. i. 21; Tit. ii. 14.

P. Did you never hear any of us pray? If you had, you would have heard that we are more large and earnest in confessing and lamenting our sins, even in public, before God and the congregation, than any others ordinarily are. In truth, every godly man is so humbled in the sense of his sins,1 that he is a greater burden and trouble to himself than all the world is besides, and he loatheth himself for all his sins. We confess ourselves sinners, with daily grief and shame; and if, indeed, the Catharists did otherwise, they were no kin to us, nor any of our acquaintance. Why do we exhort others so much to contrition and repentance, if we are not for the same ourselves? not all men make others of their own mind?

Would

El. Come, come, when you have prated never so long, you must confess that you are a pack of rebels, and seditious rogues, the firebrands of your country, that would destroy the king and all of us, if we were in your power. The world hath had experience enough of you. You have learned to cant and talk smoothly in your way, and have God, and Christ, and heaven, and Scripture in your mouths; but, on my conscience, the devil and treason is in your hearts.

P. Whom do you mean, sir?

El. I mean all of you that pretend so much to godliness and preciseness, and make such ado with Scripture and religion. You will not swear, nor drink, nor whore, nor go to a play, but ye are traitors all.

P. Doth not every man profess godliness, who professeth to be a Christian? Do not the king himself, and his council, and nobles, and judges, and all the magistrates of the land almost, and all the bishops and clergy, profess Christianity, and godliness, and to believe the Scripture, and to hope for heaven? Do not they all pray in the Common Prayer, that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, that at the last we may come to eternal joy;' and 'that we may live a godly, righteous, and sober life;' and 'that we may fall into no sin;' and that we may serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives:' with many more such passages? Are you good friends to your king and country, that would make men believe that it is a sign of a bad subject to be religious, and that to "fear God and honour the king" may not stand together? What! will you charge the king and all his magistrates with treason? Are they all traitors who obey him and defend him?

9 Rom. vii. 16, 17, 24; Psalm li.; Acts xxvi; Tit. iii. 2, 3.

El. You know who I mean well enough. I mean you puritans, all the pack of you.

P. A puritan is a word of so arbitrary interpretation, that sure it is too large to found a charge of treason upon. Mr. Robert Bolton, and Bishop Downame, and Bishop Robert Abbot, and many such, will tell you that it is commonly used in the mouths of the profane for any man that feareth God, and liveth holily, and avoideth wilful sin, and will not be debauched as sensualists are and sometimes it is taken for one that is against the prelacy and ceremonies. In the first sense, as a puritan signifieth a serious Christian, and a godly man, dare you say that the king, nobles, judges, and bishops are not such? I am not acquainted with them but our religion teacheth us to judge all men to be what they profess themselves to be, till the contrary be certain and notorious. Dare you say that all the magistrates, prelates, citizens, and subjects of the land are either ungodly men, or traitors? Sure this cannot be your meaning.

El. You are loath to know my meaning. I mean all the pack of the precisians that are for so much strictness, and preaching and praying, and talking of Scripture.

P. Dare you say that neither the king, nor his nobles, nor judges, nor bishops, nor clergy, are for Scripture, and for much preaching and praying, and for strict, precise obedience to God, and for strictness of justice, temperance, and sobriety? What, will you say that all are traitors to the king, that will not be rebels against God, and perfidious traitors against Christ and Christianity?

El. I mean your second sort of puritans, the non-conformists, if you are willing to understand.

P. Now, I understand you, sir, but it is but in part. But what is conformity or non-conformity to our case? What, if all nonconformists were as bad as you make them, will you, therefore, plead for non-conformity and rebellion against God? What an argument is this! Non-conformists are rebels. Therefore an ungodly man needeth no repentance and conversion, or we may be saved without a holy heart and life. Do you think this is wise reasoning? Do not conformists plead for holiness? Be you but a godly conformist, and I shall rejoice in your felicity. But, because I must love my neighbour as myself, I have three or four questions further to ask you. 1. Is it they that conform in nothing, or they that conform not in every thing? Such a one was Chillingworth; and I thought you had not taken the papists to be all traitors, who are non-conformists too.

2. Is it their doctrine that is traitorous? Or is it their hearts