love and pity to men's souls, the peace of the Church, uniformity, order, the peace of the commonweal, the wisdom of the state, the King's, Queen's, and Parliament's proceedings, the odiousness of sects, heresies, blasphemies, novelties, seducers, and their infections, the obstinacy of heretics, after all means, disputations, examinations, synods, yea, and after conviction in the poor heretic's own conscience. Add to these the flattering sound of those glossing titles, the godly magistrate, the Christian magistrate, the nursing fathers and mothers of the Church, Christian kings and queens. But all other kings and magistrates (even all the nations of the world over, as Mr. Cotton pleads) must suspend and hold their hands, and not meddle in matters of religion until they be informed, etc. PEACE. The dreadful righteous hand of God, the eternal and avenging God, is pulling off these masks and vizards, that thousands and the world may see this bloody tenent's beauty. TRUTH. But see (my heavenly sister and true stranger in this sealike, restless, raging world), see here what fires and swords are come to part us! Well; our meetings in the heavens shall not thus be interrupted, our kisses thus distracted, and our eyes and cheeks thus wet, unwiped. For me, though censured, threatened, persecuted, I must profess, while heaven and earth lasts, that no one tenent that either London, England, or the world doth harbor, is so heretical, blasphemous, seditious, and dangerous to the corporal, to the spiritual, to the present, to the eternal good of all men, as the bloody tenent (however washed and whited) I say, as is the bloody tenent of persecution for cause of conscience. A WARNING TO ENDICOTT. [Letter to Governor Endicott. From "The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody." 1652.] HE Maker and Searcher of our hearts knows with what bitterness I write, as with bitterness of soul I have heard such language as this to proceed from yourself and others, who formerly have fled from (with crying out against) persecutors! "You will say this is your conscience; you will say you are persecuted, and you are persecuted for. your conscience. No; you are Conventiclers, heretics, blasphemers, seducers. You deserve to be hanged; rather than one shall be wanting to hang him I will hang him myself. I am resolved not to leave an heretic in the country." Oh, sir, you cannot forget what language and dialect this is, whether not the same unsavory and ungodly, blasphemous and bloody, which the Gardiners and Bonners both former and later used to all that bowed not to the state golden image of what conscience soever they were. And indeed, sir, if the Most High be pleased to awaken you to render unto his holy majesty his due praises, in your truly broken-hearted confessions and supplications, you will then proclaim to all the world, that what profession soever you made of the Lamb, yet these expressions could not proceed from the dragon's mouth. Oh remember, and the most holy Lord bring it to your remembrance, that you have now a great price in your hand, to bring great glory to his holy name, great rejoicing to so gracious a Redeemer (in whom you profess is all your healing and salvation), great rejoicing to the holy Spirit of all true consolation, whom yet so long you who have grieved and sadded, great rejoicing to those blessed spirits (attending upon the Lamb, and all his, and terrible to his persecutors), great rejoicing and instruction to all that love the true Lord Jesus (notwithstanding their wanderings among so many false Christs), mourning and lamenting after him in all parts of the world where his name is sounded. Your talents are great, your fall hath been so; your eminency is great, the glory of the Most High in mercy or justice toward you will be great also. Oh remember it is a dangerous combat for the potsherds of the earth to fight with their dreadful Potter. It is a dismal battle for poor naked feet to kick against the pricks; it is a dreadful voice from the King of kings, and Lord of lords, "Endicott, Endicott, why huntest thou me? why imprisonest thou me? why finest, why so bloodily whippest, why wouldest thou (did not I hold thy bloody hands) hang and burn me?" Yea, sir, I beseech you remember that it is a dangerous thing to put this to the may be, to the venture or hazard, to the possibility. Is it possible (may you well say) that since I hunt, I hunt not the life of my Saviour, and the blood of the Lamb of God? I have fought against many several sorts of consciences, is it beyond all possibility and hazard, that I have not fought against God, that I have not persecuted Jesus in some of them? Sir, I must be humbly bold to say, that 'tis impossible for any man or men to maintain their Christ by their sword, and to worship a true Christ! to fight against all consciences opposite to theirs, and not to fight against God in some of them, and to hunt after the precious life of the true Lord Jesus Christ. Oh remember whether your principles and consciences must in time and opportunity force you. 'Tis but worldly policy and compliance with men and times (God's mercy overruling) that holds your hands from murdering of thousands and ten thousands were your power and command as great as once the bloody Roman emperors was. Oh remember once again (as I began) and I humbly desire to remember with you, that every gray hair now on both our heads is a Boanerges, a son of thunder, and a warning piece to prepare us for the weighing of our last anchors, and to be gone from hence, as if we had never been. [An Epistle to Mrs. Williams. From "Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health." 1652.] IN N the next place, my dear love, let us down together by the steps of holy meditation into the valley of the shadow of death. It is of excellent use to walk often into Golgotha, and to view the rotten. skulls of so many innumerable thousands of millions of millions of men and women, like ourselves, gone, gone forever from this life and being, as if they never had life nor being, as the swift ships, as the weaver's shuttle, as an arrow, as the lightning through the air. It is not unprofitable to remember the faces of such whom we knew, with whom we had sweet acquaintance, sweet society, with whom we have familiarly eaten and lodged, but now grown loathsome, ugly, terrible, even to their dearest, since they fell into the jaws of death, the King of terrors. And yet they are but gone before us, in the path all flesh must tread. How then should we make sure, and infinitely much of a Saviour, who delivers us from the power and bitterness of death and grave and hell, who is a resurrection and life unto us, and will raise up and make our bodies glorious, like his glorious body, when He shall shortly appear in glory. It is further of great and sweet use against the bitterness of death, and against the bitter-sweet delusions of this world daily to think each day our last, the day of our last farewell, the day of the splitting of this vessel, the breaking of this bubble, the quenching of this candle, and of our passage into the land of darkness, never more to behold a spark of light until the heavens be no more. Those three uncertainties of that most certain blow, to wit, of the time when, the place where, the manner how it shall come upon us, and dash our earthen pitcher all to pieces-I say the consideration of these three should be a threefold cord to bind us fast to an holy watchfulness for our departures, and a spur to quicken us to abundant faithfulness in doing and suffering for the Lord and his Christ. It should draw up our minds into heavenly objects, and loosen us from the vexing vanities of this vain puff of this present sinful life. Oh how weaned, how sober, how temperate, how mortified should our spirits, our affections, our desires be when we remember that we are but strangers, converse with strange companies, dwell in strange houses, lodge in strange beds and know not whether this day, this night shall be our final change of this strange place for one far stranger, dark and doleful, except enlightened by the death and life of the Son of God! How contented should we be with any pittance, any allowance of bread, of clothes, of friendship, of respect, etc.! How thankful unto God, unto man, should we poor strangers be for the least crumb, or drop, or rag vouchsafed unto us, when we remember we are but strangers in an inn, but passengers in a ship; and though we dream of long summer days, yet our very life and being is but a swift short passage from the bank of time to the other side or bank of a doleful eternity! How patient should our minds and bodies be under the crossing, disappointing hand of our all-powerful Maker, of our most gracious Father, when we remember that this is the short span of our purging and fitting for an eternal glory, and that when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world! How quietly, without the swellings of revenge and wrath, should we bear the daily injuries, reproaches, persecutings, etc., from the hands of men, who pass away and wither, it may be before night, like grass or as the smoke on the chimney's top, and their love and hatred shall quickly perish! Yea, how busy, how diligent, how solicitous should we be like strangers upon a strange coast, waiting for a wind or passage, to get dispatched what we have to do, before we hear that final call, "Away, Away, let us be gone from hence!" John Cotton. BORN in Derby, England, 1585. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1652. AN EPITAPH FOR SARA AND ROLAND COTTON. FA [Written in 1649.] IN SARAM. AREWELL, dear daughter Sara, now thou'rt gone, Were the last words thou spak'st to me alone. Go then, sweet Sara, take thy sabbath rest, |