t in short time there appeared three several
interests, each of them fearless and restless in the prosecution
of their designs: they may for distinction be called, the active
Romanists, the restless Non-conformists,--of which there were many
sorts,--and the passive peaceable Protestants. The counsels of the
first considered and resolved on in Rome; the second both in Scotland,
in Geneva, and in divers selected, secret, dangerous Conventicles,
both there, and within the bosom of our own nation: the third pleaded
and defended their cause by established laws, both Ecclesiastical and
Civil: and if they were active, it was to prevent the other two from
destroying what was by those known Laws happily established to them
and their posterity.

I shall forbear to mention the very many and dangerous plots of the
Romanists against the Church and State; because what is principally
intended in this digression, is an account of the opinions and
activity of the Non-conformists: against whose judgment and practice
Mr. Hooker became at last, but most unwillingly, to be engaged in a
book-war; a war which he maintained not as against an enemy, but with
the spirit of meekness and reason.

[Sidenote: The Non-conformists]

In which number of Non-conformists, though some might be sincere,
well-meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity, as
thereby to cover a multitude of their errors; yet of this party
there were many that were possessed with a high degree of spiritual
wickedness; I mean with an innate restless pride and malice; I do
not mean the visible carnal sins of gluttony and drunkenness, and
the like,--from which, good Lord, deliver us!--but sins of a higher
nature, because they are more unlike God, who is the God of love, and
mercy, and order, and peace: and more like the Devil, who is not
a glutton, nor can be drunk, and yet is a Devil: but I mean those
spiritual wickednesses of malice and revenge, and an opposition to
government: men that joyed to be the authors of misery, which is
properly his work that is the enemy and disturber of mankind; and
thereby greater sinners than the glutton or drunkard, though some will
not believe it. And of this party there were also many, whom prejudice
and a furious zeal had so blinded, as to make them neither to hear
reason, nor adhere to the ways of peace: men that were the very dregs
and pest of mankind; men whom pride and self-conceit had made to
over-value their own pitiful