5. Little more _excuse_ have you, who are still in _doubt_ concerning _this_ day of your visitation. For you have all the proof that you can reasonably expect or desire, all that the nature of the thing requires. That in many places, abundance of notorious sinners are totally reformed, is declared by a thousand eye and ear-witnesses, both of their present and past behaviour. And you are sensible, the proof of such a point as this must, in the nature of things rest upon testimony. And that God alone is able to work such a reformation, you know all the scriptures testify. What would you have more? What pretence can you have, for _doubting_ any longer? You have not the least room to expect or desire any other, or any stronger evidence.
I trust, you are not of those who _fortify_ themselves against conviction; who are “_resolved_ they will never believe this.” They ask, “who are these men?” We tell them plainly: but they credit us not. Another and another of their own friends is convinced, and tells them the same thing. But their answer is ready, “Are _you_ turned methodist too?” So _their_ testimony likewise goes for nothing. Now how is it possible these should ever be convinced? For they will believe none but those who speak on _one_ side.
6. Do you delay fixing your judgment, till you see a work of God, without any stumbling-block attending it? That neither is yet nor ever will. _It must needs be, that offences will come._ And scarce ever was there such a work of God before, with so few as have attended _this_.
When the _reformation_ began, what mountainous offences lay in the way, of even the sincere members of the church of _Rome_? They saw _such_ failings in those great men, _Luther_ and _Calvin_! Their vehement _tenaciousness_ of their own opinions; their _bitterness_ toward all who differed from them; their _impatience_ of contradiction and utter want of _forbearance_, even with their own brethren.
But the grand stumbling-block of all, was, their open _avowed separation_ from the church; their rejecting so many of the _doctrines_ and _practices_, which the others accounted the most sacred; and their continual _invectives_ against the church they separated from, so much sharper than _Michael_’s reproof of _Satan_.
Where there fewer stumbling-blocks attending the _reformation_ in _England_? Surely no, for what was _Henry_ the Eighth? Consider, either his _character_, his _motives_ to the work, or his _manner_ of pursuing it! And even king _Edward’s ministry_ we cannot clear, of _persecuting_ in their turns, yea and _burning hereticks_. The main stumbling-block also still remained, _viz._ open _separation_ from the church.
7. Full as many were the offences that lay in the way of even the sincere members of the church of _England_, when the people called _Quakers_ first professed, that they were sent of God to reform the land. Whether they were or no, is beside our question: it suffices for the present purpose to observe, that over and above their open, avowed, total _separation_ from the church, and their vehement _invectives_ against many of her _doctrines_, and the whole frame of her _discipline_: they spent their main strength in disputing about _opinions_ and _externals_, rather than in preaching faith, mercy, and the love of God.
In these respects, the case was nearly the same when the _Baptists_ first appeared in _England_. They immediately commenced a warm dispute, not concerning the _vitals_ of Christianity, but concerning the _manner_ and _time_ of administering one of the _external ordinances_ of it. And as their _opinion_ hereof totally differed from that of all the other members of the church of _England_, so they soon openly declared their separation from it, not without sharp _censures_ of those that continued therein.
8. The same occasion of offence was, in a smaller degree, given by the _Presbyterians_ and _Independents_: for they also spent great part of their time and strength, in opposing the commonly received _opinions_, concerning some of the _circumstantials_ of religion; and for the sake of these, _separated_ from the church.