romances, plays, masks, gaming, fiddlers, &c. the entertainments that moft delight you? Had you the spirit of Christianity indeed, could you confume your most precious little time in fo many unneceffary vifits, games, and paftimes; in your vain compliments, courtships, feigned stories, flatteries, and fruitless novelties, and what not? invented and used to your diversion, to make you easy in your forgetfulness of God: which never was the Chriftian way of living, but entertainment of the Heathens that knew not God. Oh, were you truly touched with a sense of your fins, and in any measure born again; did you take up the cross of Jefus, and live under it, thefe things (which fo much please your wanton and fenfual nature) would find no place with you! This is not feeking the things that are above, to have the heart thus fet on things that are below; nor, working out your own falvation with fear • and trembling,' to spend your days in vanity. This is not crying with Elihu, I know not to give flattering titles to men; for in fo doing my Maker would foon take me away: this is not to deny felf, and lay up a more hidden and enduring fubftance, an eternal inheritance in the heavens, that will not pass away. Well, my friends, whatever you think, your plea of cuftom will find no place at God's tribunal: the light of Chrift in your own hearts will over-rule it, and this Spirit, against which we testify, fhall then appear to be what we fay it is. Say not, I am ferious about flight things: but beware you of levity and rafhnefs in ferious things.

§. X. Before I close, I shall add a few teftimonies from men of general credit, in favour of our non-conformity to the world in this particular.

Luther, the great reformer, (whofe fayings were oracles with the age he lived in, and of no lefs reputation now, with many that object against us) was fo far from condemning our plain fpeech, that, in his Ludus, he fports himself with You to a fingle perfon, as an incongruous and ridiculous fpeech, viz. Magifter, vos eftis iratus?

i Col. iii. 1.

Master,

Master, are You angry? as abfurd with him in Latin, as, My Masters, art Thou angry? is in English. Erafmus, a learned man, and an exact critick in fpeech, (than whom, I know not any we may fo properly refer the grammar of the matter to) not only derides it, but bestows a whole difcourfe upon rendering it abfurd: plainly manifefting, that it is impoffible to preferve numbers, if You, the only word for more than One, be used to exprefs One: as alfo, that the original of this corruption, was the corruption of flattery. Lipfius affirms of the ancient Romans, that the manner of greeting, now in vogue, was not in ufe amongst them. To conclude: Howell, in his Hiftory of France, gives us an ingenious account of its original; where he not only affures us, that anciently the peasants Thou'd their kings, but that pride and flattery first put inferiors upon paying a plural refpect to the fingle person of. every fuperior, and fuperiors upon receiving it. And though we had not the practice of God and man so undeniably to justify our plain and homely fpeech, yet, fince we are perfuaded that its original was from pride and flattery, we cannot in confcience use it. And however we may be cenfured as fingular, by thofe loofe and airy minds, that, through the continual love of earthly pleasures, confider not the true rife and tendency of words and things, yet, to us, whom God has convinced, by his Light and Spirit in our hearts, of the folly and evil of fuch courfes, and brought into a fpiritual difcerning of the nature and ground of the world's fashions, they appear to be fruits of pride and flattery, and we dare not continue in fuch vain compliances to earthly minds, left we offend God, and burden our own confciences. But having been fincerely affected with the reproofs of inftruction, and our hearts being brought into a watchful fubjection to the righteous law of Jefus, fo as to bring our deeds to the light*, to fee in whom they are wrought, if in God, or not; we cannot, we dare not conform ourselves to the fashions

* John iii. 19, 20.

of

of the world, that pass away; knowing affuredly, that ⚫ for every idle word that men speak, they fhall give an account in the day of judgment'.'

§. XI. Wherefore, reader, whether thou art a nightwalking Nicodemus, or a scoffing scribe; one that would vifit the bleffed Meffiah, but in the dark customs of the world, that thou mightest pass as undiscerned, for fear of bearing his reproachful crofs; or elfe a favourer of Haman's pride, and countest these teftimonies but a foolish fingularity; I must say, divine love enjoins me to be a meffenger of truth to thee, and a faithful witness against the evil of this degenerate world, as in other, fo in these things; in which the spirit of vanity and luft hath got so great an head, and lived fo long uncontrouled, that it hath impudence enough to term its darkness light, and to call its evil off-fpring by the names due to a better nature, the more eafily to deceive people into the practice of them. And truly, fo very blind and infenfible are most, of what spirit they are, and ignorant of the meek and self-denying life of holy Jefus, whose name they profefs, that to call each other Rabbi, that is, Mafter; to bow to men, (which I call worship) and to greet with flattering titles; and do their fellowcreatures homage to fcorn that language to themselves that they give to God, and to spend their time and estate to gratify their wanton minds; (the customs of the Gentiles, that knew not God) pafs with them for civility, good breeding, decency, recreation, accomplishments, &c. O that man would confider, fince there are but two fpirits, one good, the other evil, which of them it is that inclines the world to these things! and whether it be Nicodemus or Mordecai in thee, that doth befriend these despised Chriftians, which makes thee ashamed to difown that openly in converfation with the world, which the true light hath made vanity and fin to thee in fecret? Or, if thou art a defpifer, tell me, I pray thee, which doft thou think thy mockery, anger, or contempt do most resemble, proud Haman,

Mat. xii. 36.

or

or good Mordecai? My friend, know, that no man hath more delighted in, or been prodigal of thofe vanities called civilities, than myself; and could I have covered my confcience under the fafhions of the world, truly I had found a fhelter from fhowers of reproach that have fallen very often and thick upon me; but had I, with Jofeph, conformed to Ægypt's customs, I had finned against my God, and loft my peace. But I would not have thee think it is a mere Thou or Title, fimply or nakedly in themselves, we boggle at, or that we would beget or fet up any form inconfiftent with fincerity or true civility: there is but too much of that: but the esteem and value the vain minds of men do

put upon them, that ought to be croffed and stripped of their delights, conftrains us to teftify fo fteadily against them. And this know, from the fenfe God's Holy Spirit hath begotten in us, that that which requires thefe cuftoms, and begets fear to leave them, and pleads for them, and is displeased if not used and paid, is the spirit of pride and flattery in the ground, though frequency, ufe, or generofity, may have abated its ftrength in fome: and this being discovered by the light that now shines from heaven, in the hearts of the despised Christians I have communion with, neceffitates them to this teftimony, and myself, as one of them, and for them, in a reproof of the unfaithful, who would walk undifcerned, though convinced to the contrary; and for an allay to the proud despisers, who scorn us as a people guilty of affectation and fingularity. For the eternal God, who is great amongst us, and on his way in the earth to make his power known, will root up every

plant that his right hand hath not planted.' Wherefore let me beseech thee, reader, to confider the foregoing reafons, which were mostly given me from the Lord, in that time, when my condefcenfion to these fashions would have been purchased at almost any rate; but the certain fenfe I had of their contrariety to the meek and self-denying life of holy Jefus, required of me my disuse of them, and faithful teftimony against them. I fpeak the truth in Chrift; I lye not; I

would

would not have brought myself under cenfure and difdain for them, could I, with peace of confcience, have kept my belief under a worldly behaviour. It was extreme irksome to me, to decline and expose myself: but having an affured and repeated fenfe of the original of these vain customs, that they rife from pride, felf-love, and flattery, I dared not gratify that mind in myself or others. And for this reafon it is, that I am earnest with my readers to be cautious how they reprove us on this occafion; and do once more intreat them, that they would seriously weigh in themfelves, whether it be the fpirit of the world, or of the Father, that is fo angry with our honeft, plain, and harmless Thou and Thee: that fo every plant that God, our heavenly Father, hath not planted in the fons and daughters of men, may be rooted up.

CHAP. XI.

§. 1. Pride leads people to an exceffive value of their perfons. §. 2. It is plain from the racket that is made about blood and families: alfo in the cafe of shape and beauty. §. 3. Blood no nobility, but virtue. §. 4. Virtue no upitart: antiquity, no nobility without it, elfe age and blood would bar virtue in the prefent age. §. 5. God teaches the true fense of nobility, who made of one blood all nations: there is the original of all blood. §. 6. Thefe men of blood, out of their feathers, look like other men. §. 7. This is not faid to reject, but humble the gentleman: the advantages of that condition above others. An exhortation to recover their loft economy in families, out of intereft and credit. §. 8. But the author has a higher motive; the gofpel, and the excellencies of it, which they profefs. §. 9. The pride of perfons, refpecting shape and beauty: the washes, patches, paintings, dreffings, &c. Th's excefs would keep the poor: the mischiefs that attend it. §. 10. But pride in the old, and homely, VOL. II. I

yet