One of these is, That you are a _new_ people, your _name_ is new, (at least, as used in a religious sense) not heard of, till a few years ago, either in our own, or any other nation. Your _principles_ are new, in this respect, that there is no other set of people among us (and, possibly, not in the Christian world) who hold them all, in the same degree and connection; who so strenuously and continually insist on the absolute necessity of universal holiness both in heart and life; of a peaceful, joyous love of God; of a supernatural evidence of things not seen; of an inward witness that we are the children of God; and of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, in order to any good thought, or word, or work. And perhaps there is no other set of people, (at least not visibly united together) who lay _so much_ and yet _no more_ stress than you do, on rectitude of _opinions_, on outward _modes of worship_, and the use of those _ordinances_ which you acknowledge to be of God. _So much_ stress you lay even on right _opinions_, as to profess, that you earnestly desire to have a right judgment in all things, and are glad to use every means which you know or believe may be conducive thereto; and yet _not so much_ as to condemn any man upon earth, merely for thinking otherwise than you do; much less to imagine, that God condemns him for this, if he be upright and sincere of heart. On those outward _modes of worship_, wherein you have been bred up, you lay _so much_ stress as highly to approve them; but not so much as to lessen your love to those who conscientiously dissent from you herein. You likewise lay _so much_ stress on the use of those _ordinances_, which you believe to be of God, as to confess there is no salvation for _you_, if you wilfully neglect them. And yet you do not judge them that are otherwise minded; you determine nothing concerning those, who, not believing those ordinances to be of God, do, out of principle, abstain from them.
Your _strictness_ of life, taking the whole of it together, may likewise be accounted new. I mean, your making it a rule, to abstain from fashionable _diversions_, from _reading_ plays, romances, or books of humour, from _singing_ innocent songs, or _talking_ in a merry, gay, diverting manner; your _plainness_ of dress; your _manner of dealing_ in trade; your exactness in observing the _Lord’s day_; your scrupulosity as to things that have _not paid custom_; your total abstinence from _spirituous liquors_, (unless in cases of necessity,) your rule, “not to mention the fault of an absent person, in particular, of _ministers_, or of _those in authority_” may justly be termed new. Seeing, although some are scrupulous in some of these things, and others are strict with regard to other particulars; yet we do not find any other body of the people, who insist on all these rules together. With respect therefore both to your _name_, _principles_, and _practice_, you may be considered as a _new_ people.
Another peculiar circumstance of your present situation, is, that you are _newly united_ together; that you are just gathered, or (as it seems) gathering rather, out of all other societies or congregations; nay, and that you have been hitherto, and do still subsist without _power_, (for you are a low, insignificant people) without _riches_, (for you are poor almost to a man, having no more than the plain necessaries of life) and without either any extraordinary gifts of _nature_, or the advantages of _education_: most even of your teachers being quite unlearned, and (in other things) ignorant men.
There is yet another circumstance, which is quite peculiar to yourselves: whereas every other _religious set_ of people, as soon as they were joined to each other, _separated themselves_ from their former societies or congregations: you, on the contrary, do not; nay, you _absolutely disavow_ all desire of separating from them. You openly and continually declare you have not, nor ever had such a design. And whereas the congregations to which those separatists belonged, have generally spared no pains to prevent that separation; those to which you belong, spare no pains (not to prevent, but) to occasion this _separation_, to drive you from them, to force you on that division, to which you declare you have the strongest aversion.