Sect. 7. But if Thou to a single person be improper or uncivil, God himself, all the holy fathers and prophets, Christ Jesus and his apostles, the primitive saints, all languages throughout the world, and our own lawproceedings are guilty; which, with submission, were great presumption to imagine. Besides, we all know it is familiar with the most of authors, to preface their discourses to the reader in the same language of Thee and Thou as, Reader, Thou art desired, &c. or, Reader, this is written to inform Thee, of the occasion, &c. And it cannot be denied, that the most famous poems, dedicated to love or majesty, are written in this stile. Read of each in Chaucer, Spencer, Waller, Cowley, Dryden, &c. why then should it be so homely, illbred, and insufferable in us? This, I conceive, can never be answered.

Sect. 8. I doubt not at all, but that something altogether as singular attended the speech of Christ and his disciples: for I remember it was urged upon Peter in the high priest's palace, as a proof of his belonging to Jesus, when he denied his Lord: "Surely (said they) Thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth Thee" they had guessed by his looks, but just before, that he had been with Jesus; but when they discoursed him, his language put them all out of doubt: surely then he was one of them, and he had been with Jesus. Something it was he had learned in his company, that was odd and observeable; to be sure, not of the world's behaviour. Without question, the garb, gait, and speech of his followers differed, as well as his doctrine, from the world; for it was a part of his doctrine it should be so. It is easy to believe, they were more plain, grave, and precise; which is more credible, from the way which poor, confident, fearful Peter took, to disguise the business; for he fell to cursing and swearing. A sad shift! but he thought that the likeliest way to remove the suspicion, that was most unlike Christ. And

f Matt. xxvi. 71, 73, 74,

the policy took; for it silenced their objections; and Peter was as orthodox as they. But though they found him not out, the cock's crow did; which made Peter remember his dear suffering Lord's word, and " he went forth and wept bitterly:" that he had denied his Master, who was then delivered up to die for him.

Sect. 9. But our last reason is of most weight with me; and, because argumentum ad hominem, it is most heavy upon our despisers; which is this: It should not therefore be urged upon us, because it is a most extravagant piece of pride in a mortal man, to require or expect from his fellow-creature a more civil speech, or grateful language, than he is wont to give the immortal God, and his Creator, in all his worship to him. Art thou, O man, greater than he that made thee? Canst thou approach the God of thy breath, and great judge of thy life, with Thou and Thee, and when thou risest off thy knees, scorn a Christian for giving to thee, (poor mushroom of the earth) no better language than thou hast given to God but just before? An arrogancy not to be easily equalled! But again, it is either too much or too little respect; if too much, do not reproach and be angry, but gravely and humbly refuse it if too little, why dost thou show to God no more? O whither is man gone! to what a pitch does he soar? he would be used more civilly by us, than he uses God; which is to have us make more than a God of him: but he shall want worshippers of us, as well as he wants the divinity in himself that deserves to be worshipped. Certain we are, that the Spirit of God seeks not these respects, much less pleads for them, or would be wroth with any that conscientiously refuse to give them. But that this vain generation is guilty of using them, to gratify a vain mind, is too palpable. What capping, what cringing, what scraping, what vain unmeant words, most hyperbolical expressions, compliments, gross flatteries, and plain lies, under the name of civilities, are men and women guilty of in conversation! Ah, my friends! whence fetch you these examples? What part of all the writings

of the holy men of God warrants these things? But to come near to your own professions: Is Christ your example herein, whose name you pretend to bear? or those saints of old, that lived in desolate places, of whom the world was not worthy? Or do you think you follow the practice of those Christians, that, in obedience to their Master's life and doctrine, forsook the respect of persons, and relinquished the fashions, honour and glory of this transitory world: whose qualifications lay not in external gestures, respects, and compliments, but in a meek and quiet spirit," adorned with temperance, virtue, modesty, gravity, patience, and brotherly-kindness, which were the tokens of true honour, and only badges of respect and nobility in those Christian times? O no! But is it not to expose ourselves both to your contempt and fury, that we imitate them, and not you? And tell us, pray, are not romances, plays, masks, gaming, fiddlers, &c. the entertainments that most delight you? Had you the spirit of Christianity indeed, could you consume your most precious little time in so many unnecessary visits, games, and pastimes; in your vain compliments, courtships, feigned stories, flatteries, and fruitless novelties, and what not? invented and used to your diversion, to make you easy in your forgetfulness of God; which never was the christian way of living, but entertainment of the heathens that knew not God. Oh, were you truly touched with a sense of your sins, and in any measure born again; did you take up the cross of Jesus, and live under it, these things, which so much please your wanton and sensual nature, would find no place with you! This is not seeking the things that are above, to have the heart thus set on things that are below; nor, "working out your own salvation with fear and trembling," to spend your days in vanity. This is not crying with Elihu, "I know not to give flattering titles to men; for in so doing my Maker would soon take me away: this is not to deny self, and lay up a more hidden and

€ Heb. xi.

h 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4.

Col. ii. 1.

enduring substance, an eternal inheritance in the hea vens, that will not pass away. Well, my friends, whatever you think, your plea of custom will find no place at God's tribunal: the light of Christ in your own hearts will over-rule it, and this Spirit against which we testify, shall then appear to be what we say it is. Say not, I am serious about slight things: but beware you of levity and rashness in serious things.

Sect. 10. Before I close, I shall add a few testimonies from men of general credit, in favour of our nonconformity to the world in this particular.

Luther, the great reformer, (whose sayings were oracles with the age he lived in, and of no less reputation now, with many that object against us) was so fr from condemning our plain speech, that, in his Ludus, he sports himself with You to a single person, as an incongruous and ridiculous speech, viz. Magister, vos estis iratus! Master, are you angry? as absurd with him in Latin, as, My Masters, art thou angry? is in English. Erasmus, a learned man, and an exact critic in speech, than whom, I know not any we may so properly refer the grammar of the matter to, not only derides it, but bestows a whole discourse upon rendering it absurd : plainly manifesting, that it is impossible to preserve numbers, if You, the only word for more than One, be used to express One: as also, that the original of this corruption, was the corruption of flattery. Lipsius affirms of the ancient Romans, that the manner of greeting now in vogue, was not in use amongst them. To con

clude; Howel, in his History of France, gives us an ingenious account of its original; where he not only assures us, that anciently the peasants Thou'd their kings, but that pride and flattery first put inferiors upon paying, a plural respect to the single person of every superior, and superiors upon receiving it. And though we had not the practice of God and man so undeniably to justify our plain and homely speech, yet, since we are persuaded that its original was from pride and flattery, we cannot in conscience use it. And however we may

be censured as singular, by those loose and airy minds, that, through the continual love of earthly pleasures, consider not the true rise and tendency of words and things, yet, to us, whom God has convinced, by his Light and Spirit in our hearts, of the folly and evil of such courses, and brought into a spiritual discerning of the nature and ground of the world's fashions, they appear to be fruits of pride and flattery, and we dare not continue in such vain compliances to earthly minds, least we offend God, and burden our own consciences. But having been sincerely affected with the reproofs of instruction, and our hearts being brought into a watchful subjection to the righteous law of Jesus, so as to bring our deeds to the light,* to see in whom they are wrought, if in God, or not; we cannot, we dare not conform ourselves to the fashions of the world that pass away, knowing assuredly, that "for every idle word that men speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment."

Sect. 11. Wherefore, reader, whether thou art a nightwalking Nicodemus, or a scoffing scribe; one that would visit the blessed Messiah, but in the dark customs of the world, that thou mightest pass as undiscerned, for fear of bearing his reproachful cross; or else a favourer of Haman's pride, and countest these testimonies but a foolish singularity; I must say, divine love enjoins me to be a messenger of truth to thee, and a faithful witness against the evil of this degenerate world, as in other, so in these things; in which the spirit of vanity and lust hath got so great an head, and lived so long uncontrolled, that it hath impudence enough to term its darkness light, and to call its evil off-spring by the names due to a better nature, the more easily to deceive people into the practice of them. And truly, so very blind and insensible are most, of what spirit they are and ignorant of the meek and self-denying life of holy Jesus, whose name they profess, that to call each other Rabbi, that is, Master; to bow to men, which I call worship, and to