-English clergy, as they derive in chief part, the maintenance they possess from their predecessors, the popish clergy, from whom they received their priesthood, have therewith also taken up from them their old cry of sacrilege, with which, as a bugbear, they would scare all from attempting to discover the cheat. -But the legal alienation of a great part of those 'surreptitious acquisitions of the clergy, begun in Henry the VIII. time, carried on in Edward the VI. and completed in queen Elizabeth's, (of these three, the two last were Protestant princes) hath abated the edge of that elerical weapon, and satisfied the disinterested part of the nation, that the word sacrilege, in this case, is but like a scare-crow, especially when used by the priests for their own profit, as most commonly it is; for though they pretend the maintenance of God's worship, yet it is their own maintenance they intend. And herein Demetrius and they most patly agree; for he also urged, as the most specious pretence, and which was most likely to impress the people, the danger, lest by Paul's preaching, the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and her magnificence destroyed, Acts xix. 27. Whereas the great inducement to him for stirring, was the danger lest his craft should be set at nought, and he should thereby iose the gains he made by Diana's temple, ver. 25, 27. Do the priests now cry out against sacrilege? So did Demetrius and his craftsmen then. Did they

cloak their private interest with a seeming regard and care for the temple and magnificence of their goddess Diana? So do the priests theirs now, with a pretence of zeal for the worship of God. Did they in their fury take no notice of the magistrates, nor laws of their country? So neither do many of the priests now, who, without regard to law or magistrates, run furiously and tumultuously into their neighbours' grounds, with their servants and teams, and forcibly and arbitrarily take, and carry away their corn and hay, when, where, and in what quantity they please. Will the priests allege, that notwithstanding these irregular practices, yet they have the laws and magistrates on their sides? So had Demetrius and his company too; while the good apostle, not backed by laws, nor countenanced by magistracy, was yet enabled by Divine assistance, to stand the shock of all their rage and fury, and boldly to testify against that which was corrupt and naught, although it had the favour and support of a law and magistracy too; and indeed, so apt is the comparison in most respects, between those shrinemakers, and these tithe-takers, that my adversary in vain labours to retort it; for even the very particulars he instances to cast it upon me, fix it the more firmly on the head of himself, and his own party.

Nor is he less put to it to avoid the force of his own unwary expressions of the oil for the lamp, and pay for the soldier; whereby he

hath discovered that he and his brethren are mere mercenary men, whose lamp will burn no longer than it is fed with the oil of tithes. This was one of the arcana cleri, a secret, it seems, that should not have been divulged. But children, and he knows who besides, are said to tell true. And he having inconsider ately blabbed it out, his chief care and art is now how to palliate, extenuate, and mince the matter, and varnish it over with some kind of flourish, that the ground of it may not be seen; but this he does so weakly, and lays his colour so thin, that even the weakest eye may easily see through it. The mention I made of these passages in my former book, he calls tedious and nauseous repetitions; and tedious no doubt, and nauseous it is to him and his brethren, to see the false foundation of their ministry so openly exposed; but so little do I fear those repetitions being nauseous or tedious to the indifferent reader, that upon this occasion, I desire him to peruse them again, in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth pages of my former book.

From tithes being the oil to their lamp, and pay to their army, he says, I draw, as I imagine, a cutting consequence, viz. That their lamps will not burn without oil, nor they fight without pay. This cutting consequence, as he calls it, he touches as tenderly, as if he was afraid it would cut his fingers; though he well knew, that in the wording of it, he had taken off its edge as much as he could; for if my

да

consequence had been only, that their lamps will not burn without oil, it would not then have been so keen. He might then have repli ed, Whose will? Can any lamp burn without oil? No sure; every lamp must have oil, but the oil should be suitable to the lamp; an out. ward lamp should have outward oil, an in. ward lamp inward oil. Now they pretending their ministry to be a spiritual lamp, a religious lamp, (as the true ministry indeed is, and can be nourished only by the spiritual, heavenly oil of the Divine eternal word;) and yet confessing tithes to be the oil that nourishes their ministerial lamp, and without which their lamp will not burn; this plainly shews their lamp is not spiritual, nor their ministry what they pretend, &c.

By this we may judge, ex pede Herculem, of the priest's performance; and Thomas Ellwood's answer, had he gone through and finished it, which yet I hope, so far as he hath gone, may one time or other see the light, being well worth the perusal as it is; and had he finished it, I am satisfied it would have been a very serviceable piece; no hand, in my judgment, being more capable of such a performance. But he had, as I said, some other services on his hands to divert him; of which his answer to William Rogers' great book, aforesaid, in 1682, entitled, An Antidote against the Infection of William Rogers' Book miscalled the Christian Quaker; in five parts. Soon after, no doubt, was one containing

above thirty sheets, in which he answered him chapter by chapter, and almost paragraph by paragraph; in relation to church government, and the good order of truth established amongst us; and also as to most of the principles of truth, which the said William Rogers in one part of his work, had endeavoured to pervert to his own ends. A laborious work it was, and difficult task to go through so evenly as he hath done. And though it is controversy, yet pleasant to read; as also his Caution to Constables, and other Inferior Officers, concerning the Execution of the Conventicle Act. With some Observations thereupon. Humbly offered by way of advice, to such well-meaning and moderate Justices of the Peace, as would not willingly ruin their Peaceable Neighbours, &c. Which is mentioned in his own account.

.1683. And now to come to the time where he breaks off his own relation, and to carry it on in some measure, though far short and inferior to what his own hand could have done. For it cannot be expected that any one can write another man's life like himself; there being many passages, public and private, outward and inward, even as to the frame of his own mind and condition, between God and his own soul; which, as no man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him; so none can relate but himself, or like himself; for as the wise man says, The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and the stran