EDWARDS. 87 within their power, venturing the loss of liberties, estates, lives, and all in that cause, and inflame us with zeal against a toleration, the great Diana of the sectaries.* " A toleration," adds this bigotted and furious zealot, " is the grand design of the devil ; his master-piece and chief engine he works by to uphold his tottering kingdom. It is the most compendious, ready, and sure way to destroy all religion, lay all waste, and bring in all evil. It is a most transcendent, catholic, and fundamental evil, of any that can be imagined. As original sin is the fundamental sin, having in it the seed and spawn of all sin : so a toleration bath in it all errors and all evils. It is against the whole stream and current of scripture both in the Old and New Testament, both in matters of faith and manners, both general and par- ticular commands. It overthrows all relations, political, ecclesiastical, and economical. Other evils, whether errors of judgment or practice, are only against some few places of scripture or relation ; but this is against all. This is the Abaddon, Apollion, the destroyer of all religion, the abomina- tion of desolation and astonishment, the liberty of perdition ; therefore the devil follows it night and day, and all the devils in hell, and their, instruments, are at work to promote a toleration."t These extracts,expressed in the author's own language, are justly descriptive of his arbitrary and outrageous temper. But the presby-terian interest beginning soon after to decline, .and Oliver Cromwell having overturned the power of the par- liament, Mr. Edwards, to escape the expected resentment of the independents, fled to Holland, wherehe died of a quartan ague, in 1647, aged forty-eight years. By his wife, who was heiress of a considerable fortune, he left one daughter and four sons, the, second of whom was Dr. John Edwards, author of Veritas Redux, and many other learned works upon theological subjects.t His WORKS.-1. Reasons against the Independent Government of particular Congregations, 1641.-2. A Treatise of the Civil Power of Ecclesiasticals, and of Suspension from the Lord's Supper, 1642.- 3. Antapologia ; or, a full Answer to the Apolow6etical Narration' of Mr. (Thomas) Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sympson, Mr. Burroughs, and Mr. Bridge, Members of the Assembly of Divines, 1644.-4. Gan- grxna ; or, a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errors, Here- sies, Blasphemies, and pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this Edwards's Gangrana, part 1. p. 85, 86. Third edit. + Ibid. p. 58, 59. t Biog. Britan. vol. v. p. 541 Edit. 1778.
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