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viork by others in their more private capacity, — amongst which I hope the ensuing brief discourse may, with impartial readers, find admittance. It is designed in general for the defence and vindication of the truth, and that truth which is pub- licly professed in this nation, against the solicitation of it, and opposition made unto it with more than ordinary vigilancy, and seeming hopes of pre valency; on what grovinds I know not.
This is done by those of the Roman church; who have given in themselves as sad an instance of a degeneracy from the truth as ever the Christian world had experience of. From insensible and almost imperceptible entrances into deviations from the holy rule of the gospel, — countenanced by specious pretences of piety and devotion, but really influenced by the corrupt lusts of ambition, love of pre-eminence, and earthly-mindedness, in men ignorant or neglective of the mystery and simplicity of the gospel, — their apostasy hath been carried on by various degrees, upon advantages given unto those that made the benefit of it unto themselves, by political commotions and alterations, until, by sundry arti- fices and sleights of Satan and men, it is grown unto that stated opposition to the right ways of God which we behold it come unto at this day. The great Roman historian desires his reader, in the perusal of his discourses, to consider and observe, " quse vita, qui mores fuerint: per quos viros, quibusque artibus, domi militiseque, et partum et auctum imperium sit. Labente deinde pauUatim disciplina, velut desidentes primo mores sequatur aninio ; deinde ut magis magisque lapsi sint; tum ire coeperint prascipites: donee ad hsec tempora, quibus nee vitia nos- tra, nee remedia pati possvimus, perventum est," [Liv. Pref.] ; — " What was the course of life, what were the manners of those men, both at home and abroad, by whom the Roman empu'e was erected and enlarged ; as also how ancient discipline insensibly decaying, far different manners ensued, whose decay more and more in- creasing, at length they began violently to decline, until we came unto these days wherein we are able to bear neither our vices nor their remedies :" all which may be as truly and justly spoken of the present Roman ecclesiastical estate. The first rulers and members of that church, by their exemplary sanctity and suffering for the truth, desei'vedly obtained great renown and i-eputation amongst the other churches in the world ; but after a while the discipline of Christ decaying amongst them, and the purity of his doctrine beginning to be corrupted, they insensibly fell from their pristine glory, until at length they precipitantly tumbled into that condition, wherein, because they -fear the spiritual remedy would be their temporal ruin, they are resolved to abide, be it never so desperate or deplorable. And hence also it is, that of all the opposition that ever the disciples of Christ had to contend w'ithal, to suffer under, or to witness against, that made unto the truth by the Roman church hath proved the longest, and been attended with the most dread- ful consequents ; for it is not the work of any age, or of a few persons, to un- ravel that web of falsehood and unrighteousness, which in a long tract of time hath been cunningly woven, and closely compacted together. Besides, the heads of this declension have provided for their security, by intermixing their concerns with the polity of many nations, and moulding the constitutions of their govern- ments unto a subserviency to their interests and ends. But He is strong and faithful who, in his own way and time, will rescue his truth and worship from being trampled on and defiled by them. In the meantime, that which renders the errors of the fathers and sons of that church most pernicious unto the profes- sors of Christianity is, that, —whether out of blind zeal, rooted in that obstinacy which men are usually given up unto who have refused to retain the truth in the love and power of it, or from their being necessitated thereunto in their counsels for the supportment and preservation of their present interests and secular advan- tages,— they are not contented to embrace, practise, and adhere unto those crooked
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