338 TheLIFE ofthe LIB.7 hibition. At loft I let him talk, and fpake to thole nearer me, which would hear me, and told them, that this was it that I was going to fay, 'I hat I granted Bifhop Zany, that it was poflible to be free from ao ing Sin for a certain time that fo he might have no matter of Objeâion againft me ; and that the Inftancesof my Conceffion were thefe: s. In the time of abfolute Infancy. a. In the time of to- tal Fatuity or Madnefs, as natural Ideots that never had the ufe of Reafon. 3. In the cime of a Lethargy, Carus, or Apoplexy, or Epileplie. 4. In the time of lawful fleep, whena Man Both not fo much as dream amifs : And whether any other Inftances might be given, I determined not. But as I talked thus; Bifhop Manly went on, talking louder than I, and would neither hear me, nor willingly have had me to have been heard. Behind me at the lower end of the Table, flood Dr. Crowther, and he would confute me, and I defended Dr. Lang, in that' `yeroboam made Vac! to Sin : What gather you thence, quoth I, that they bad no Sinbut that, or never finned before : He anfwered yes; and with a little Nonfence would defend it, that Ifrael finned not till then : When I had proved the contrary to him in the general Acceptation of the Word [Sin ;11 I told him, that ifbetook the Word Figuratively, the Genus for a Species, 1 granted him that they finned not that Species of Sin, which feroboass taught them, which is in the Text emphati- cally called Sin : If he meant that they finned no Sin of Idolary, or no NarianalSin till then, It was not true, and if it were, it was nothing to our Queftion, which was about Sin in the General, or indefinitely. He told me they Sinned no Na- tional Sin till then. I asked hint whether the Idolatry, tile Unbelief, the Mur- muring, &o. by which all the Nation, fave Caleb and yofhna fell in theWildernefs, and the Idolatry for which in the time of the Judges the Nation was conquered, and captivated, were none of them National Sins? I give the Reader the lnftance of this Odious kind of Talk, to thew him what kind of Men we talkt with, and what a kind of Taskwe had. § 196. And a little further touch of it I (hall give you : When I heg'd their Compaffion on the Souls of their Brethren, and that they would not unneceffari- ly call fo many out of the Miniflry and their Communion : Bifhop Cafina told me that we threamed them with Numbers, and for his part, he thought the King fhould do well to make us name them all. A charitable and wife Motion ! To name all theThoufands of England that diffented from them, and that had fworn the Covenant, and whom they would after Perlècute. 1 197. When I read in the Preface to our Exceptions againft the Liturgy [That after twenty years Calamity, they would not yield to that which fevered Bifhops volunta- rily offered twenty Tears before] (meaning the Corrections of the Liturgy offered by Archbifhop Ufber, Archbilhop Walliama. Bifhop Marton, Dr. Prideaux; and many others); Bifhop Coffin anfwered me, That we threatned them with a new War, . and it was time for the King to look tous : I had no lhelter from the Fury of the Bifhop but to name Dr. Hammond, and tell him that I remembred Dr. Hammond inlfted on the fame Argument, that twenty Tears Calamity fhould have taught Men more Charity, and brought them to repentance and Brotherly Love; and that it is an Ag- gravation oftheir Sin tobe unmerciful after fo long and heavy WarningsfromGod's Hand : He told me, if that were our meaning, it was all well. And thefe were the molt logical Difcourfesof that Bilhop. § 198. Among all the hilltops there was none who had fo ptomifrng a Face as Dr. Sterne the Bilhop of Carlifle t Ile look'd fo honeftly, and gravely, and foberly, that I fcarce thought fuch a Face could have deceived me; and when I was in- treating them not to call out fo many of their Brethren through the Nation, as ferupeled a Ceremony which they confefs'd indifferent, he turn'd to theveil of the Reverend Billiops, and noted me for laying [in the Nation:] He will not fay [in the Kingdom] faith he, left he awn a King;. This was all that ever I heard thatworthy Prelate fay : But with grief I told him, that half the Charity whichbecame fo grave a Bithop, might have fisfficed to have helps him to a better Expofitionof the Word [Nation] ; from the Mouths of firth who have fo lately taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and fworn Fidelity to the King as his Chaplains, and had filch Teftimonres front him as we have had : and that our cafe was fad, if we could plead by the KingsCommillion for Accommodation, upon no no better Terms, than to be noted as Traytors, every time we ufed Inch a Word as the [Na- tion]; which all monarchical Writers ufè. 4 r99
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