It may be noticed that the same mistake was made long ago by Anthony a Wood ; and, indeed, it is probable that it was he who misled Mr Nichol.
Being aware, then, that the treatise was not Dr Manton's, the Editor has not thought himself entitled to include it among his loorhs. It is enough to subjoin the preface, which was all that Manton contributed to the treatise as reprinted. The work was originally published in 1641, in answer to Bishop Hall's advocacy of the divine right of Episcopacy. It authors were /S'tephen ilfarshall, Edmund C'alamy, l^homas Young, ilfatthew A^ewcomen, and FFilliam ^S'purstow, whose initials were com- bined to form the pseudonym Smectymnuus. In 1653 it was reprinted, as we have stated, with the following preface by Dr Manton: —
502 EDITORIAL NOTE.
TOTHEEEADER.
Good Reader, — Solomon told us long since, that there is no end of many books, Eccles, xii. 12. Scripturiency (it seemeth) is no novel Immonr, but abounded then, even when the means of transmitting knowledge was more difficult. If there were cause for the complaint then, there is much more now, since the press hath helped the pen ; every one will be scribbling, and so better books are neglected, and lie like a few grains of corn under a heap of chaff and dust. Usually books are received as fashions ; the newest, not the best and most profitable, are most in esteem ; insomuch that really learned and sober men have been afraid to publish their labours, lest they should divert the world from reading the useful works of others that wrote before them. I remember Dr Altingius,! a terse and neat spirit, stood out the battle of twenty years' importunity, and would not yield to divulge anything upon this fear. Certainly, reader, it is for thy profit some- times to look back and consult with them that first laboured in the mines of knowledge, and not always to take up what cometh next to hand. In this controversy of discipline many have written, but not all with a like judgment and strength, which I believe hath been no small rock of otfence, and stone of stumbling to the adversaries, who are hardened with nothing so much as a weak defence of the truth ; as Austin complaineth,2 that when he was a Manichee, he had had too too often the victory put into his hands by the defences of weak and unskilful Christians. This work, which the stationer hath now revived (that it may not be forgotten, and, like a jewel, after once showing, shut in the cabinet of private studies only), Avas penned by several worthy divines of great note and fame in the churches of Christ, under the borrowed and covered name of Smectymnuus,^ which was some matter of scorn and exception to the adversaries ; as the Papists objected to Calvin, his -printing his Institutions under the name of Alcunius, and to Bucer his naming himself Aretius Felinus, though all this without ground and reason, the affixion of the name to any work being a thing indifferent, for there we must not consider so much the author as the matter, and not who said it, but what ; and the assumption of another name not being infamous, but where it is done out of deceit, and to another's prejudice, or out of shame because of guilt, or fear to own the truths which they should establish. I suppose the reverend authors were willing to lie hid under this onomastic, partly that their work might not be received with pre- judice, the faction against which they dealt arrogating to themselves a monopoly of learning, and condemning all others as ignorants and novices not worthy to be heard ; and partly that they might not bur-
■^ ' Videbat enim pcassim laborari mole et copia variorum in hoc genere commenta- riorum, novis editionibus ancipitem reddi eorum delectum ; sed meliores etiam, id est, veteres illos et probatos, auctores e atudiosorum manibus extrudi,' &c.— P/'cc/ac. Scrtp- torum Theolog, Henric. Alting.
^ ' Quajdam noxia victoria pa3ne mihi semper in disputationibus proveniebat cum Cliristiauis imperitis.' — August, contra Alanich., cap. 19.
^ Mr Steven Marshall, Mr Edmund Calamy, Dr Thomas Young, Mr Matthew New- comen, Dr William Spurstow.
EDITORIAL NOTE, 503
then their frontispiece with a voUiminous nomenclature, it not being usual to affix so many naiucs at length to one treatise.
For the work itself speaketh its own praise, and is now once more subjected to thy censure and judgment. This second publication of it was occasioned by another book for vindication of the ministry by the Provincial Assembly of London, wherein there are frequent appeals to Sraectymnuus. Though otherwise I should have judged the reprint- ing seasonable ; for the Lord hath now returned us to such a juncture of time wherein there is greater freedom of debate, without noise and vulgar prejudice ; and certainly if the quarrel of Episcopacy were once cleared and brought to an issue, we should not be so much in the dark in other parts of discipline, the conviction of an error by solid grounds being the best way to find out the truth. Keformations carried on with popular tumults, rather than rational conviction, seldom end well ; though the judgment of God be to be observed in pouring contempt upon those which are partial in His law, yet the improvident leaps which a people are wont to make upon such occa- sions lay the foundation of a lasting mischief. I hope, that by the review of these matters we shall come to know more of the Lord's counsel for the ordering of his house ; or at least that, by weighing what may be said on all sides, we shall learn more ^ to truth-it in love, which is the unfeigned desire of him who is thine in the Lord,