the people; and turn the hearts of the children from their fathers, that they may be ready to promote the main design? And is it not then our wisest course to see that God be our friend, and to do that which tendeth most to engage him in our defence? I think it is no time now to stand upon our credit, so far as to neglect our duty and befriend our sins, and so provoke the Lord against us. It rather beseems us to fall down at the feet of our offended Lord, and to justify him in his judgments, and freely and penitently to confess our transgressions, and to resolve upon a speedy and thorough reformation, before wrath break out upon us, which will leave us no remedy. It is time to make up all breaches between us and heaven, when we stand in such necessity of the Divine protection! For how can an impenitent, unreformed people, expect to be sheltered by holiness itself? It is a stubborn child, that under the rod will refuse to confess his faults; when it is not the least use of the rod to extort confession. We feel much, we fear more, and all is for sin; and yet are we so hardly drawn to a confession?-9. The world already knows that we are sinners ; as none suppose us perfect, so our particular sins are too apparent to the world: and is it not meet then that they should see that we are penitent sinners? It is surely a greater credit to us to be penitent sinners, than impenitent sinners; and one of the two we shall be while we are on earth. Certainly as repentance is necessary to the recovery of our peace with God, so it is also to the reparation of our credit with wise and godly men: it is befriending and excusing our sin that is our shame indeed, and leadeth towards everlasting shame; which the shame of penitent confession would prevent.-10. Our penitent confession and speedy reformation are the means that must silence the approaching adversaries. He is imprudently inhuman, that will reproach men with their sins that bewail and penitently charge them upon themselves. Such men have a promise of pardon from God; and shall men take us by the throat when God forgiveth us? Who dare condemn us, when God justifies us? Who shall lay that to our charge, which God hath declared that he will not charge us with? When sin is truly repented of by Gospel-indulgence, it ceaseth to be ours. What readier way then can we imagine to free us from the shame of it, than to shame ourselves for it in

penitent confessions, and to break off from it by speedy reformation?-11. The leaders of the flock must be exemplary to the rest; and therefore in this duty as well as in any other. It is not our part only to teach them repentance, but to go before them in the exercise of it ourselves. As far as we excel them in knowledge and other gifts, so far should we also excel them in this and other graces.-12. Too many that have set their hand to this sacred work do so obstinately proceed in self-seeking, negligence, pride, division, and other sins, that it is become our necessary duty to admonish them. If we could see that such would reform without reproof, we could gladly forbear the publishing of their faults. But when reproofs themselves do prove so ineffectual, that they are more offended at the reproof than at the sin; and had rather that we should cease reproving, than themselves should cease sinning, I think it is time to sharpen the remedy. For what else should we do? To give up our brethren as incurable, were cruelty, as long as there are further means to be used. We must not hate them, but plainly rebuke them, and not suffer sin upon them. (Lev. xix. 17.) And to bear with the vices of the ministers, is to promote the ruin of the church. For what speedier way is there for the depraving and undoing of the people, than the depravity of their guides? And how can we more effectually further a reformation (which we are so much obliged to do) than by endeavouring the reforming of the leaders of the church? Surely, brethren, if it be our duty to endeavour to cast out those ministers that are negligent, scandalous, and unfit for the work, and if we think this so necessary to the reformation of the church (as no doubt it is), it must needs be our duty to endeavour to heal the sins of others, and to use a much more gentle remedy to them that are guilty of a less degree of sin. If other men's sin deserve an ejection, surely ours deserve and require plain reproof. For my part, I have done as I would be done by ; and it is for God and the safety of the church, and in tender love to the brethren, whom I do adventure to reprehend: not (as others) to make them contemptible and odious, but to heal the evils that would make them so; that so no enemy may find this matter of reproach among us. But especially because our faithful endeavours are of so great necessity to the welfare of the church, and the saving of men's

souls, that it will not consist with a love to either (in a predominant sort) to be negligent ourselves, or silently to connive at, and comply with the negligent. If thousands of you were in a leaky ship, and those that should pump out the water and stop the leaks, should be sporting or asleep, yea, or but favour themselves in their labours, to the hazarding of you all, would you not awake them to their work, and call out on them to labour as for your lives? and if you used some sharpness and importunity with the slothful, would you think that man were well in his wits that would take it ill of you, and accuse you of pride, self-conceitedness, or unmannerliness, to presume to talk so saucily to your fellow-workmen? or should tell you, that you wrong them by diminishing their reputation? Would you not say, 'The work must be done, or we are all dead men: is the ship ready to sink, and do you talk of reputation? or had you rather hazard yourself and us, than hear of your slothfulness?' This is our case, brethren! The work of God must needs be done: souls must not perish while you mind your worldly business, or observe the tide and times, and take your ease, or quarrel with your brethren: nor must we be silent while men are hastened by you to perdition, and the church to greater danger and confusion, for fear of seeming too uncivil and unmannerly with you, or displeasing your impatient souls. Would you be but as impatient with your sins as with reproofs, you should hear no more from us, but we should be all agreed! But neither God nor good men will let you alone in such sins. Yet if you had betaken yourselves to another calling, and would sin to yourselves only, and would perish alone, we should not have so much necessity of molesting you, as now we have: but if you will enter into the office which is for the necessary preservation of us all, so that by letting you alone in your sins, we must give up the church to apparent loss and hazard; blame us not if we talk to you more freely than you would have us do. If your own body be sick, and you will despise the remedy; or if your own house be on fire, and you will be singing or quarrelling in the streets; I can possibly bear it, and let you alone (which yet in charity I should not easily do). But if you will undertake to be the physician of an hospital, or to all the town that is infected with the plague; or will undertake to quench all the

fires that shall be kindled in the town, there is no bearing with your remissness, how much soever it may displease you. Take it how you will, you must be told of it; and if that will not serve, you must get more closely told of it; and if that will not serve, if you be rejected as well as reprehended, you must thank yourselves. I speak all this to none but the guilty.-And thus I have given you those reasons, which forced me, even in plain English, to publish so much of the sins of the ministry, as in the following treatise I have done. And I suppose the more penitent and humble any are, and the more desirous of the truest reformation of the church, the more easily and fully will they approve such free confessions and reprehensions.

The second sort of objections against this free confession of sin, I expect to hear from the several parties whose sins are here confessed. Most of them can be willing that others be blamed, so they might be justified themselves. I can truly say, that what I have here spoken, hath been as impartially as I could, and not as a party, nor as siding with any, but as owning the common Christian cause, and as somewhat sensible of the apparent wrongs that have been offered to common truth and godliness, and the hindrances of men's salvation, and of the happiness of the church. But I find it impossible to avoid the offending of guilty men; for there is no way of avoiding it, but by our silence, or their patience and silent we cannot be, because of God's commands; and patient they cannot be, because of their guilt and partiality, and the interest that their sin hath got in their affections. I still except those humble men that are willing to know the worst of themselves, and love the light that their deeds may be made manifest, and long to know their sins that they may forsake them, and their duty that they may perform it.

Some, it is likely, will be offended with me, that I blame them so much for the neglect of that Discipline, which they have disputed for so long. But what remedy? If discipline were not of God, or if it were unnecessary to the church, or if it were enough to dispute for duty, while we deliberately refuse to perform it; then would I have given these brethren no offence.

Some, it is likely, will be offended that I mention, with

disallowance, the Separatists or Anabaptists; as I understand some are much offended that I so mentioned them in an epistle before the Quakers' Catechism, as if they opened the door to the apostacy of these times; and they say that by this it appeareth that while I pretend so much zeal for the unity of the Church, I intend and endeavour the contrary. To which I answer: 1. Is it indeed a sign that a man loveth not the unity of the saints, because he loveth not their disunion and division? Who can escape the censure of such men, but he that can unite the saints by dividing them? 2. I never intended, in urging the peace and unity of the saints, to approve of any thing which I judged to be a sin; nor to tie my own tongue or other men's from seasonable contradicting it. Is there no way to peace but by participating of men's sin? The thing I desire is this: (1.) That we might all consider how far we may hold communion together, even in the same congregations, notwithstanding our different opinions; and to agree not to withdraw where it may possibly be avoided. (2.) But where it cannot, that yet we may consult how far we may hold communion in distinct congregations and to avoid that, no further than is of mere necessity. And (3.) and principally, to consult and agree upon certain rules for the management of our differences, in such manner as may be least to the disadvantage of the common Christian truths which are acknowledged by us all. Thus far would I seek peace with Arminians, Antinomians, Anabaptists, or any that hold the foundation. Yea, and in the two last, I would not refuse to consult an accommodation with moderate Papists themselves, if their principles were not against such consultations and accommodations: and I should judge it a course which God will better approve of, than to proceed by carnal contrivances to undermine their adversaries, or by cruel murders to root them out, which are their ordinary courses. I remember that godly, orthodox, peaceable man, bishop Usher, (lately deceased,) tells us in his sermon at Wansted, for the Unity of the Church, that he made a motion to the Papist priests in Ireland; that, because it was ignorance of the common principles that was likely to be the undoing of the common people, more than the holding of the points which we differ in; therefore both parties should agree to teach them some Catechism containing those