mity be past: but then on the sudden their trust grows feeble, and their devotion cold, and heartless: No sooner delivered, but, like old Israel, they forget God at the sea, even at the Red Sea; -use him like Themistocles's planetrees, under which men run for shelter in storm; but the shower once over, they pluck off the branches, turn their backs, and away. Nay, but there is in Scripture language an infinite and an interminable donec, which never expires. He knew her not, till she brought forth; nay, he never knew her. In spite of Helvidius, anτaglivos, (as the Greek church style her) a virgin before, and in, and after the birth of our Lord, and for ever. Aye, that's the virgin's soul indeed, that keeps ever close to her heavenly spouse: not only runs under his wings for shelter, when calamities affright her, saying, Spread thy skirt over me, and then strays away again, as soon as ever the flattering calm, and sunshine of prosperity tempts her abroad. As our Lord hath given us an everlasting donec: Lo I am with you, saith he, till the end of the world: (not that he will leave us then, but take us yet nigher unto himself, and so we shall ever be with the Lord, as the Apostle speaks:†) so must we also have one for him of the same latitude and extension. For ever under the shadow of his wings; till this single tyranny, as in the old translation-all these calamities, as in * Matth. i. ult. † 1 Thess. iv. 17. the new or as the Hebrew implies, till all and every of our calamities be 'over-past. Both before, and in, and after calamities, still under the shadow of God's wings. While they last, it is In the shadow of thy wings will I trust: and when they are passed, it is In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice; that is all the difference. As the scenes shift, our devotion must improve, and advance too; till our prayer be heightened into praise, (as I trust ere long it will be,) our hope swallowed in enjoyment, and our trust sublimated, and made to flower up into joy and triumph: when the same God that raised David from the cave to the throne, shall translate us also from the shadow of his wings into the light of his countenance: to the Beatifical Vision whereof he of his mercy bring us, who hath so dearly bought it for us, Jesus Christ the Righteous: to whom with thee, O Father, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed of us, and all the creatures in heaven and earth, blessing, honour, glory, and power, both now, and for evermore. AMEN. APPENDIX, No. V. CONTAINING TWO ORIGINAL LETTERS OF DR. SANDERSON. FROM A MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION OF LETTERS OF EMINENT PERSONS, MADE BY ARCHBISHOP SANcroft. (SEE LAMBETH MANUSCRIPTS, v. 595.) I. ON THE RELATIVE MERITS OF THE PRESBYTERIANS AND INDEPENDENTS.-See reference to it, vol. i. p. 61. II. ON THE MEASURE OF OBEDIENCE TO BE PAID TO an usurped AUTHORITY.-See reference to it, vol. i. p. 62. LETTER I. Dr. Sanderson to N. N., respecting the relative Merits of the Presbyterians and the Independents. SIR, 10th April, 1649. I THANK you for the loan of your book (Robert Baillie's Dissuasive from Error). The author is not the same man I thought, but another of the same name, and a strong Presbyterian : who, as he hath sufficiently discovered the absurdity of some of the Independent opinions considered apart, and by themselves; so I cannot but admire (but that I see by every day's experience how grossly, out of affection to their preconceived fancies, men, otherwise understanding enough, are blinded with prejudices) how the author could choose but see, that most of the assertions both of Brownists and Independents, are but the natural conclusions and results of their own premises. These kind of writings do exceedingly confirm me in my old opinions; scilicet, that, the grounds of our busy reformers supposed true, either of these ways is infinitely more rational, and defensible, and more consentaneous to the principles whereon the endeavours of reformation are built, than the Presbyterian way is. This, methinks, I durst adventure to make clear to the understanding of any rational man, in very many |