a confession of their faith, as if their principles were unknown, although it had been long since declared, that as to matters of doctrine they agreed with other reformed churches; nor was any thing referring to doctrine, but what concerns worship and discipline, that caused their predecessors to remove into the deserts of America, while it was a land not sown, that there they might have liberty to practise accordingly. Therefore, this synod last convened, having in their second session, which was May 12, 1680, consulted, and considered of a confession of faith, they unanimously agreed, that a confession of faith, according to that which was drawn up by the ministers and messengers of the congregational churches, who met at the Savoy in London, (being for the most part, some small variations excepted, the same with that which was agreed upon first by the assembly at Westminster, and had been approved by a general assembly in Scotland, as well as by the synod at Cambridge, in New England, anno 1648,) should be compiled, which being publickly twice read and examined, was approved of. The little variation which they made from the one, in compliance with the other, may be seen by those who please to compare them. But for the main, they chose to express themselves in the words of those reverend assemblies, that they might, with one heart and mouth, glorify God and our Lord Jesus Christ. But as to what concerns church government, they refer to the platform of discipline, agreed upon by the messengers of their churches anno 1648, solemnly owned and confirmed in their last synod.

The general court of the Massachusetts, October 15, 1679, having perused the result of the late synod, judge it meet to commend the same to the serious consideration of all the churches and people within their jurisdiction, enjoining and requiring all persons in their respective capacities, to a careful and diligent reformation of all those provoking evils mentioned therein, according to the true intent thereof, that so the anger and displeasure of God, that hath been many ways manifested, may be averted from his people, and his favour and blessing ob

tained as in former times; to that end they ordered the same to be printed, as accordingly they did the confession of faith and platform of discipline, for the benefit of the churches of New England in present and after

times.

Since the publishing the acts of the late synod at Boston, one John Russell, a Wedderdop'd shoemaker at Woburn, in New England, taking notice of an expres. sion in one clause thereof, under the breach of the second commandment, rendering those of that persuasion as guilty of the breach thereof, viz. that they do no bet. ter than set up an altar against God's altar; and of some expressions likewise in a small treatise, since that time published by one of the principal ministers of the country, judiciously and learnedly asserting and proving the divine right of infant baptism, did in the year following stitch up a small pamphlet, styled by him, "A brief narrative of some considerable passages concerning the first gathering and further progress of a church of Christ in gospel order, in Boston, in New England," &c. wherein he endeavours to clear the innocency of those commonly, (though falsely, as he says,) called anabaptists. Surely he was not well aware of the old adage, ne sutor ultra crepidam, or else he would not have made such botching work. For although the simple cobbler of Ag. awam, his countryman, who in the year 1645 used many honest stitches to much better purpose, in helping to repair his native country, lamentably tattered in the upper leather and sole; out of which it may not be much amiss to borrow a few of his lifts, which those of his profession may make good use of, before they offer any more of their ware to an open market.

"1. To entreat them to consider what an high pitch of boldness it is for man to cut a principal ordinance out of the kingdom of God, if it be but to make a dislocation, which so far disgoods the ordinance, I fear it altogether unhallows it; to transplace or transtime a stated institution of Jesus Christ, without his direction, I think is to destroy it.

"2. What a cruelty it is to divest children of that only

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external privilege which their heavenly Father hath be queathed them, to interest them visibly in himself, his Son, his Spirit, his covenant of grace, and the tender bosom of their careful mother, the church.

"3. What an inhumanity it is to deprive parents of that comfort they may take, from the baptism of their infants, dying in their childhood.

"4. How unseasonably and unkindly it is, to interturb the state and church with their Amalekitish onsets, when they are in their extreme pangs of travail with their lives.

"5. To take a thorough view of those who have perambled this bye path, being sometimes in the crouds of foreign Wedderdopers, i. e. anabaptists; and prying into their inward frames with the best eyes I had, I could not but observe these disguised guises in the generality of them. 1. A flat formality of spirit, without salt or savour, in the spiritualities of Christ, as if their religion had begun and ended in their opinion. 2. A shallow slighting of such as dissent from them, appearing too often in their faces, speeches, and carriages. 3. A feeble yet peremptory obstinacy; seldom are any of them reclaimed. 4. A shameful sliding into other such tarpauline tenets, to keep themselves dry from the showers of justice, as a rational mind would never entertain, if it were not errour-blasted from heaven and hell. I should as shrewdly suspect that opinion, that will cordially corrive* with two or three sottish errours, as that faith that can professedly live with two or three sordid sins. God is as jealous of his ordinances as men are of their opinions."

Thus far the Simple Cobbler, p. 16, 17, 18, a little of whose stirrup might have served to have better endoctrinated the unstable shoemaker of Woburn, who though himself uttered it as an argument of divine favour to his opinions, that none of them of that persuasion died of the contagious sickness of the small pox, whereof so many hundred died at Boston, yet they that survived him may take notice also, that God, in whose hands are all * From Latin, corrivor, "to flow together from different streams."

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men's times, did not suffer him to live above a year in the said Boston, whither he had translated himself, lest he should further translate others from the truth; yet is not that of the poet to be forgotten, careat successibus, opto, &c. It is too often seen, that those new sectaries, that go about to unchurch all other christian societies, do at last unchurch themselves, and from anabaptists become sebaptists, then seekers, and at last ranters; it being more usual for them, that out of a giddy, unstable mind have wandered from the truth, to run into the contrary extreme, than to close with the mean principles of truth and soberness, which they have at first deserted without cause. It hath been likewise a common observation, that these Wedderdoping, new sort of christians have proved but the materia prima of all the corrupt opinions that christian religion hath of late days, since the reformation of Luther, been besmeared withal. Let men take heed of attempting a new way to heaven, by a ladder of lying figments of their own, lest thereby they be thrown the deeper into hell, as saith the same author.

But to return to what is in hand, and give this gospel ordered church, (as J. Russell terms them,) what is their due from an historian. As for the persons of those seven he apologizes for, it may more easily be granted, that they were good in the main, than that it was a good work for God they were engaged in. Boni homines are sometimes found male feriati, i.e. good men may be found to be ill employed, as Peter was, whom Christ rebukes and calls satan, and bids get behind him. Whether any of them absolutely did deserve to be delivered to satan for their obstinacy in their opinions or other miscarriages, which either through weakness of their judgments or strength of their passions, which in defence of their opinions or practices they ran into, or whether there were not more acrimony of the salt than sweetness of the gospel spirit of peace, in those that managed the discipline of the church against some of them, that had been in the communion of some of the churches thereabout, must not be here discussed, only some sober christians that were of their own profession, viz. in opposition to infant bap

tism, have said that they could not but look upon their way to be evil, and such as could not be justified. It hath possibly also been observed by some, that though slow bellied Cretians, as Paul speaks to Titus, are to be rebuked sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, yet men of a grave and serious spirit and of sober conversations, as Thomas Gold and some of the rest were said to be, would easier in all likelihood have been reclaimed from the errour of their judgments by gentler means of persuasion and long suffering, than by the corrosives of severity and sharp censures of the church, which if it were granted, yet that can give no colour to their irregular and hasty casting themselves into the mould of a partic. ular church, under the specious varnish of a church in gospel order, consisting only of a few giddy sectaries, that fondly conceit themselves to be an orderly church, when their very coalition is explicitly not only without, but against the consent of all the rest of the churches in the place, as well as the order of the civil authority.

I shall conclude with the last words of the late synod:* "Inasmuch as a thorough and hearty reformation is necessary in order to obtaining peace with God, and all outward means will be ineffectual unto that end, except the Lord pour down his Spirit from on high, it doth therefore concern us to cry mightily unto God, both in ordinary and extraordinary manner, that he would be pleased to rain down righteousness upon us;" and that the north wind would awake, and the south come and blow, that the spices thereof may flow out, that the whole church of Christ in these deserts of America may be found unto her beloved, as an orchard of pomegranates with all pleasant fruits.

CHAP. LXXIII.

Memorable accidents during this lustre of years, from

1671 to 1676.

MUCH hurt done by thunder and lightning about these times. To those mentioned before may be added * Reforming Synod, A. D. 1679. ED.