412 OBSERVATIONS ON A LIBEL. 



ordinaries, and there learned to argue in table-talk, 

 and so was very much known in the city and abroad, 

 made a leap from a vain and libertine youth, to 

 a preciseness in the highest degree ; the strangeness 

 of which alteration made him very much spoken of; 

 the matter might long before have breathed out. 

 And here I note an honesty and discretion in the 

 libeller, which I note no where else ; in that he did 

 forbear to lay to our charge the sect of the Family 

 of Love ; for, about twelve years since, there was 

 creeping in, in some secret places of the realm, 

 indeed a very great heresy, derived from the Dutch, 

 and named as was before said ; which since, by the 

 good blessing of God, and by the good strength 

 of our Church, is banished and extinct. But so 

 much we see, that the diseases wherewith our Church 

 hath been visited, whatsoever these men say, have 

 either not been malign and dangerous, or else they 

 have been as blisters in some small ignoble part 

 of the body, which have soon after fallen and gone 

 away. For such also, was the phrenetical and 

 fanatical, for I mean not to determine it, attempt 

 of Hacket, who must needs have been thought a 

 very dangerous heretic, that could never get but 

 two disciples; and those, as it should seem, perished 

 in their brain ; and a dangerous commotioner, that 

 in so great and populous a city as London is, could 

 draw but those same two fellows, whom the people 

 rather laughed at as a may-game, than took any 

 heed of what they did or said: so as it was very 

 true that an honest poor woman said when she saw 



