of obscurity, washed and new clothed, and produced as evidences upon the trial of the question, Where was your church before Luther?

I have seen enough to convince me, that the present English dissenters, contending for the sufficiency of scripture, and for primitive christian liberty to judge of its meaning, may be traced back in authentick manuscripts to the nonconformists, to the puritans, to the Lollards, to the Vallenses, to the Albigenses, and I suspect through the Paulicians, and others to the Apostles. These churches had sometimes a clandestine existence, and at other times a visible, I wish I could say a legal one; but at all times they held more truth, and less error than the prevailing factions, that persecuted them. One branch uniformly denied the baptism of infants, all allowed christian liberty, and all were enemies to an established hierarchy reigning over the consciences of their brethren. I have now before me a manuscript register of Gray, bishop of Ely, which proves, that in the year 1457, there was a congregation of this sort in this village, Chesterton, where I live, who privately assembled for divine worship, and had preachers of their own, who taught them the very doctrine, which now we preach. Six of them were accused of heresy before the tyrant of the district, and condemned to abjure heresy, and to do penance, half naked, with a faggot at their backs, and a taper in their hands, in the publick market places of Ely, and Cambridge, and in the church-yard of Great Swaffham. It was pity the poor souls were forced to abjure the twelfth arti

cle of their accusation, in which they are said to have affirmed, All priests, and people in orders, are incarnate devils!*

A hundred such instances may be produced, a thousand curious anecdotes of the manners of our ancestors, of their language, books, utensils, habits, reasoning, and rhetorick, might incidentally furnish amusement and instruction to us, and nothing would be found easier to industry, than to connect their ecclesiastical œconomy with that of the above-mentioned antelutheran protestants. We are far from justifying their mistakes and approving in the gross; but we know popish records are everlasting calumnies, and the history of the christian pulpit is among the people whom they calum

niate.

I see a thousand benefits arising to religion at large from the pursuit of this method, and I will venture to name one. It is generally allowed, that toleration is a high excellence in a system of civil polity, and that christian liberty in the church is analogous to it; but it is almost as generally supposed, that our ancestors were all ignorant of it, and that Sidney, Milton, Locke, and others of our late philosophers and statesmen, first inculcated these laws of humanity, and incorporated what we have of them into our modern constitutions. What if we could prove, that Jesus Christ,

Art. XII. Item, quod papa est antichristus, et sacerdotes sunt ejus discipuli, et omnes ordinati sunt diaboli incarnati.-XI. Item, quod extrema unctio, anglice gresyng, minime proficit.-III. Item, quod puer nec egeat, nec baptizari debeat. &c &c.-Reg. Eliens. Gul. Gray. MSS.

whose profession was theology, taught the doctrine of christian liberty, and that he only taught in a clearer manner what had from the days of Enoch been held and taught in the primitive pulpits! What if we could prove, that from the days of the apostles, the most tolerant of mankind, the doctrine had been actually believed, taught and exemplified in every age till the reformation! What if we could prove, that the generous toleration of modern states was only the doctrine of christian liberty applied to secular affairs, and stood exactly in the same predicament in a treatise of government, as natural religion stands in a system of modern theology, that is, a first principle of human felicity, discoverable by reason, but elucidated and improved by revelation! What if we could ascertain by good records, that difference in religious sentiments and practices made no difference in civil rights and mutual esteem among whole sects and parties! What if we could shew, that religious uniformity was an illegitimate brat of the mother of harlots, and nothing akin to the Son of God! What if we could infer.... Prosperity and peace be with any investigator! Alas! I must quit reveries, and go this afternoon to visit the sick, and preach in the evening to a part of my flock.

Before I go, however, I will finish this article by a remark, which will prove, I think, that this is not all reverie. The thirteenth article, objected against the forementioned Chesterton culprits by the bishop, in his consistory at Downham, is this. "Also, you affirm, that every man may be called a

church of God, so that if any one of you should be summoned before his ecclesiastical judge, and should happen to be asked this question, do you believe in the church? he may safely answer, he does, meaning that he believes in the church, because he believes the church is in every man, who is a temple of God."* Now is not this affirming, that every good man was bound to follow his own judgment in religious matters, and not to be set down by the opinions of a domineering faction, calling themselves, the church? Is a man strong for being called Samson, or wise for naming himself Solomon? Does it not mean, that every man had as much right of judging in himself solely as the whole community had collectively? We could go further, and prove that these six men, although all in one community, did not all hold the same articles, some agreed to one, some to another, but they all, the register says, affirmed this thirteenth article. Does not this prove that their ecclesiastical œconomy allowed christian liberty, and that they held a mirt communion?.... But I must go

To return. The glorious reformation was the offspring of preaching, by which mankind were informed, there was a standard, and the religion of the times was put to trial by it. The avidity of the common people to read scripture, and to hear

* Item, quod quilibet homo dicitur eccla Dei, adeo quod si quanquam illorum coram judice ecclesiastico evocatum ad hanc questionem respondere contingeret, an in eccla credis, tute tunc respondere posset quod sic, per hoc intelligens, quod in eccla credit, quia in homine qui est templum Dei.

MSS. Ubi supro.

it expounded, was wonderful, and the papists were so fully convinced of the benefit of frequent publick instruction, that they, who were justly called unpreaching prelates, and whose pulpits, to use an expression of Latimer, had been bells without clappers for many a long year, were obliged for shame to set up regular preaching again.

The church of Rome has produced some great preachers, since the reformation; but not equal to the reformed preachers; and a question naturally arises here, which it would be unpardonable to pass over in silence, concerning the singular effect of the preaching of the reformed, which was general, national, universal reformation.

In the darkest times of popery there had arisen now and then some famous popular preachers, who had zealously inveighed against the vices of their times, and whose sermons had produced sudden and amazing effects on their auditors; but all these effects had died away with the preachers, who produced them, and all things had gone back into the old state. Law, learning, commerce, society at large had not been improved. Here a new scene opens, preachers arise less popular, perhaps less indefatigable and exemplary, their sermons produce less striking immediate effects, and yet their auditors go away and agree by whole nations to reform.

Jerom Savonarola, Jerom Narni, Capistran, Connecte, and many others had produced by their sermons great immediate efforts. When Connecte preached, the ladies lowered their head-dresses, and committed quilled caps by hundreds to the