her purest times, is now restored and practised to an
extremity.--A toleration bill[12] is granted, whereby all and almost
every error, heresy and delusion appears now rampant and triumphant,
prelacy is now become fashionable and epidemical, and of popery we are
in as much danger as ever[13]; Socinian and deistical tenets are only in
vogue with the wits of the age, _foli rationi cedo_, the old Porphyrian
maxim having so far gained the ascendant at present, that reason (at
least pretenders to it, who must needs hear with their eyes, and see
with their ears, and understand with their elbows till the order of
nature be inverted) threaten not a little to banish revealed religion
and its most important doctrines out of the professing world.--A
latitudinarian scheme prevails among the majority, the greater part,
with the Athenians, spending their time only to hear and see something
new, _gadding about to change their ways, going in the ways of Egypt and
Assyria, to drink the waters of Shichor and the river_, unstable souls,
like so many light combustibles wrapt up by the eddies of a whirlwind,
tossed hither and thither till utterly dissipated.--The doctrine of
original sin[14] is by several denied, others are pulling down the very
hedges of church government, refusing all church-standards, "covenants,
creeds and confessions, whether of our own or of other churches, yea and
national churches also, as being all of them carnal, human or
antichristian inventions," contrary to many texts of scripture,
particularly 2 Tim. i. 13. _Hold fast the form of sound words_: and the
old Pelagian and Arminian errors appear again upon the stage, the merit
of the creature, free will and good works[15] being taught from press
and pulpit almost every where, to the utter discarding of free grace,
Christ's imputed righteousness, and the power of true godliness.--All
which pernicious errors were expunged and cast over the hedge by our
reforming forefathers: And is it not highly requisite, that their
faithful contendings, orthodox and exemplary lives, should be copied out
before us, when walking so repugnant to _acknowledging the God of our
fathers, and walking before him with a perfect heart_.

Again, if we shall run a comparison betwixt the practice of those who
are the subject-matter of this collection, and our present prevailing
temper and disposition, we will find how far they correspond with one
another. How courageous and zealous were they for