and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!"—Jer. ix. 1.

But, as Chrysostom said long ago in the like case to Innocentius, it is not wailing will serve the turn, if we do not bestir ourselves, what we may, for redress. When we see our house on fire, do we stand still and cry? do we not ring bells, and call neighbours, and bring ladders, and fetch buckets, and pour on water, and pull down reeds and rafters, and whatever may feed that flame? And why should we not do so, in this common conflagration? Oh, let every man of us put his hand to the work; and labour to withdraw that hellish fuel which nourisheth and increaseth this fearful combustion; and, if each man can but pull away one stick, it shall be his comfort and joy in that great day. But far, far be it from us, that any of us should mis-employ himself as an incendiary.

It is felony, by our municipal laws, for a man to burn but the frame of a building intended for a house: how heinously flagratious shall the God of Heaven account it, to set on fire His complete spiritual house the Church, whereof every believer is a living stone ! Doubtless, how slight account soever the world makes of these spiritual distempers, it shall be easier in the day of judgment for thieves and whoremongers and adulterers than for the breakers of public peace. Never was there any so fearful vengeance inflicted upon any malefactors, as upon Korah and his combination. Surely, if we consider the sin in itself, other offences had been far more heinous: but in that it was a presumptuous mutiny, tending to the affront of allowed authority, to the violation of peace, and to the destruction of community, the earth could not stand under it: hell only is fit to receive it.

I speak not this to intimate the least suspicion, much less accusation, of any of you, my dear brethren; but, by way of a tender precaution and loving cohortation, to excite you and myself to the improvement of all the powers of our souls, for the recovery and perpetuation of the Church's peace: a duty, which both our blessed Saviour, and his holy Apostles, hath so vehemently urged, as if there were no life of Christianity without it.

As we honour the God of Love and Peace whom we serve, as we love the Prince of Peace in whom we believe, as we tender the success of the Gospel of Peace which we preach, as we wish and hope for the comfort of the peace of God in our own bosoms, let us seek peace where it is missing, let us follow after it when

it flies from us, let us never leave the chase, by importuning God and men, till we overtake it, till we re-enjoy it, and all the blessings that accompany it; which shall be ever the prayer and endeavour of—Your faithful and loving fellow-labourer,

JOSEPH NORWICH.

(Prefatory Letter to The Peace Maker.)

THE CHRISTIAN'S DISPOSITION

THE Christian is a man and more, an earthly saint, an angel clothed in flesh, the only lawful image of his Maker and Redeemer, the abstract of God's Church on earth, a model of heaven, made up in clay, the living temple of the Holy Ghost.

For his disposition, it hath in it as much of heaven as his earth may make room for.

He were not a man, if he were quite free from corrupt affections; but these he masters, and keeps in with a strait hand; and if, at any time, they grow testy and headstrong, he breaks them with a severe discipline, and will rather punish himself than not tame them. He checks his appetite with discreet but strong denials, and forbears to pamper nature lest it grow wanton and impetuous.

He walks on earth, but converses in heaven; having his eyes fixed on the invisible, and enjoying a sweet communion with his God and Saviour. While all the rest of the world sits in darkness, he lives in a perpetual light: the heaven of heavens is open to none but him; thither his eye pierceth and beholds those beams of inaccessible glory which shine in no face but his.

The deep mysteries of godliness, which to the great clerks of the world are as a book clasped and sealed up, lie open before him fair and legible; and, while those bookmen know whom they have heard of, he knows whom he hath believed.

He will not suffer his Saviour to be ever out of his eye; and if, through some wordly interceptions, he lose the sight of that blessed object for a time, he zealously retrieves him,—not without a hungry check of his own mis-carriage,—and is now so much the more fixed by his former slackening so as he will henceforth sooner part with his soul than his Redeemer.

The terms of entireness wherein he stands with the Lord of Life are such as he can feel, but cannot express though he should borrow the language of angels: it is enough that they are one Spirit.

His reason is willingly captivated to his faith, his will to his reason, and his affections to both.

He fears nothing that he sees, in comparison of that which he sees not; and displeasure is more dreadful to him than

smart.

Good is the adequate object of his love: which he duly proportions, according to the degrees of its eminence; affecting the chief good, not without a certain ravishment of spirit; the lesser, with a wise and holy moderation.

Whether he do more hate sin, or the evil spirit that suggests it, is a question.

Earthly contents are too mean grounds whereon to raise his joy; these, as he balks not when they meet him in his way, so he doth not too eagerly pursue; he may taste of them, but so as he would rather fast than surfeit.

He is not insensible of those losses which casualty or enmity may inflict, but that which lies most heavily upon his heart is his sin. This makes his sleep short and troublesome, his meals stomachless, his recreations listless, his everything tedious, till he find his soul acquitted by his great surety in heaven; which done, he feels more peace and pleasure in his calm than he found horror in the tempest.

His heart is the storehouse of most precious graces. That faith whereby his soul is established triumphs over the world, whether it allure or threaten; and bids defiance to all the powers of darkness, not fearing to be foiled by any opposition. His hope cannot be discouraged with the greatest difficulties; but bears up against natural impossibilities, and knows how to reconcile contradictions. His charity is both extensive and fervent, barring out no one that bears the face of a man; but pouring out itself upon the household of faith that studies good constructions of men and actions, and keeps itself free both from suspicion and censure.

Grace doth more exalt him than his humility depresses him. Were it not for that Christ who dwells in him, he could think himself the meanest of all creatures: now, he knows he may not disparage the Deity of Him by whom he is so gloriously

inhabited, in whose only right he can be as great in his own thoughts as he is despicable in the eyes of the world.

He is wise to Godward, however it be with him for the world; and, well knowing he cannot serve two masters, he cleaves to the better, making choice of that good part which cannot be taken from him, not so much regarding to get that which he cannot keep, as to possess himself of that good which he cannot lose.

He is just in all his dealings with men, hating to thrive by injury and oppression, and will rather leave behind something of his own than filch from another's heap.

He is not closefisted, where is just occasion of his distribution, willingly parting with those metals which he regards only for use, not caring for either their colour or substance; earth is to him no other than itself, in what hue soever it appeareth.

In every good cause he is bold as a lion, and can neither fear faces nor shrink at dangers, and is rather heartened with opposition; pressing so much the more, where he finds a large door open, and many adversaries, and, when he must suffer, doth as resolutely stoop, as he did before valiantly resist.

He is holily temperate in the use of all God's blessings, as knowing by whom they are given, and to what end; neither dares either to mis-lay them, or to mis-spend them lavishly, as duly weighing upon what terms he receives them, and foreexpecting an account.

Such a hand doth he carry upon his pleasures and delights, that they run not away with him; he knows how to slacken the reins without a debauched kind of dissoluteness, and how to straiten them without a sullen rigour.

(From The Christian.)

UNDUTIFUL SONS

IN your next section, like ill-bred sons, you spit in the face of your mother-a mother too good for such sons- -the Church of England; and tell us of "Papists, that dazzle the eyes of poor people with the glorious name of the Holy Mother the Church." If they be too fond of their mother, I am sure your mother hath little cause to be fond of you, who can and dare compare her to those

For

Ethiopian strumpets, which were common to all comers. your whole undutiful carriage towards her, take heed of the ravens of the valley. As if we were no less strangers than you enemies to the Church of England, you tell the world, that we know not who she is; and that we wonder when we are asked the question, and run descant upon the two archbishops, bishops, Convocation, even what your luxuriant wit shall please; and, at last, you make up your mouth with a merry jest, telling your reader that the Remonstrant, out of his simplicity, never heard nor thought of any more Churches of England than one." Ridiculum caput! Sit you merry, brethren; but, truly, after all your sport, still my "simplicity" tells me there is but one Church of England. There are many Churches in England, but many Churches of England were never till now heard of. You had need fetch it as far as the " Heptarchy." And, to show how far you are from the objected simplicity, ye tell us, in the shutting up, that England, Scotland, and Ireland are all one Church of England. magnum ingenium sine mixturâ dementia.

Nullum

(From A Defence of The Humble Remonstrance.)

WEARY LOQUACITY

AND now forbear, if you can, readers, to smile in the parting, at the grave counsel of our wise Smectymnuus; who, after he hath tired his reader with a tedious volume, in answer to my short Defence," adviseth me very sadly, that my "words " "less in number."

66

may be

Yet, howsoever his weary loquacity may, in this causeless exprobration, deserve to move your mirth; I shall resolve to make good use of his counsel. Est olitor sæpe opportuna locutus. In the sequel, my words, which were never yet taxed for an offensive superfluity, shall be very few; and such as, to your greater wonder, I shall be beholden for, to my kind adversaries.

The rereward of my late Defence was backed by the sound testimony of Dr. Abraham Scultetus, the famous Professor of Heidelberg, and the great oracle in his time of the Palatinate; who, in both the tenets of Episcopacy by Divine Right, and the unwarrantableness of Lay Presbytery, agrees so fully with me as