the Prelats but he who thinks we are * to pitch our tent here, and have attained. the utmost profpect of reformation, that the mortall glaffe wherein we contemplate, can fhew us, till we come to beatific • vifion, that man by this very opinion declares, that he is yet farre fhort of Truth.

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Mafter, and was a per- ́. fect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid afleep, then ftrait arofe a wicked race of deceivers, who as that ftory goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his confpirators, how they dealt with the good Ofiris, took the virgin Truth, hewd her lovely form into a thousand peeces,

#

- peeces, and fcatter'd them to the four winds. From that time ever fince, the

fad friends of Truth, fuch as durft appear, imitating the carefull fearch that Ifis made for the mangl'd body of Ofiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb ftill as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever fhall doe, till her Mafters fecond comming; he fhall bring together every joynt and member, and fhall mould them into an immortall feature of lovelines and perfection. Suffer not these licencing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue feeking, that continue to do our obfequies to the torn body of our martyr'd Saint.

We

We boast our light; but if we look not wifely on the Sun itfelf, it smites us into darknes. Who can difcern thofe . planets that are oft Combuft, and thofe ftars of brighteft magnitude that rife and fet with the Sun, until the oppofite motion of their orbs bring them to fuch a place in the firmament, where they may be feen evning or morning. The light which we have gain'd, was giv'n us, not to be ever ftaring on, but by it to difcover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a Prieft, the unmitring of a Bishop, and the removing him from off. the Presbyterian fhoulders that will make. us a happy Nation, no, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule

of

of life both economicall and politicall be not lookt into and reform'd, we have

lookt fo long upon the blaze that Zuin

glius and Calvin hath beacon'd up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who

perpetually complain of fchifms and fects, and make it fuch a calamity that any man diffents from their maxims. "Tis their own pride and ignorance

which causes the disturbing, who neither

will hear with meeknes, nor can convince, yet all must be fuppreft which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite those diffevered peeces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth. To be ftill fearching what we

know

know not, by what we know, ftill clos ing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and proportionall) this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in Arithmetick, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forc❜t and outward union of cold, and neutrall, and inwardly divided minds.

Lords and Commons of England, confider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governours: a Nation not flow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing fpirit, acute to invent, futtle and finewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the higheft that human capacity can foar to. Therefore the ftudies of learning in her deepest

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