Of the Nonconformists. From the " Life of Hooker" 



In which number of Non-conformists, though some might be sincere, 

 well-meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity, as thereby 

 to cover a multitude of their errors ; yet of this party there were many that 

 were possessed with a high degree of spiritual wickedness ; I mean with an 

 innate restless pride and malice ; I do not mean the visible carnal sins of 

 gluttony and drunkenness, and the like, from which, good Lord, deliver us ! 

 but sins of a higher nature, because they are more unlike God, who is the 

 God of love, and mercy, and order, and peace : and more like the Devil, who 

 is not a glutton, nor can be drunk, and yet is a Devil : but I mean those 

 spiritual wickednesses of malice and revenge, and an opposition to govern- 

 ment: men that joyed to be the authors of misery, which is properly his work 

 that is the enemy and disturber of mankind ; and thereby greater sinners 

 than the glutton or drunkard, though some will not believe it. And of this 

 party there were also many, whom prejudice and a furious zeal had so blinded, 

 as to make them neither to hear reason, nor adhere to the ways of peace : 

 men that were the very dregs and pest of mankind ; men whom pride and 

 self-conceit had made to over-value their own pitiful crooked wisdom so much 

 as not to be ashamed to hold foolish and unmannerly disputes against those 

 men whom they ought to reverence, and those laws which they ought to 

 obey ; men that laboured and joyed first to find out the faults, and then speak 

 evil of Government, and to be the authors of confusion ; men whom com- 

 pany, and conversation, and custom had at last so blinded, and made so 

 insensible that these were sins, that like those that perished in the gainsaying 

 of Korah, so these died without repenting of these spiritual wickednesses ; of 

 which the practices of Coppinger and Hacket in their lives, and the death of 

 them and their adherents, are, Gcd knows, too sad examples, and ought 

 to be cautions to those men that are inclined to the like spiritual wicked- 

 nesses. 



And in these times, which tended thus to confusion, there were also many 

 of these scruple- mongers, that pretended a tenderness of conscience, refusing 

 to take an oath before a lawful Magistrate : and yet these very men in their 

 secret Conventicles did covenant and swear to each other, to be assiduous and 

 faithful in using their best endeavours to set up the Presbyterian doctrine and 

 discipline j and both in such a manner as they themselves had not yet agreed 

 on ; but up that government must. To which end there were many that 

 wandered up and down and were active in sowing discontents and seditions, 

 by venomous and secret murmurings, and a dispersion of scurrilous pamphlets 

 and libels against the Church and State ; but especially against the Bishops ; 

 by which means, together with venomous and indiscreet sermons, the common 



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