CANNE. 337 might be exalted ; and I remain still a worm in my hole, and numbered among the dead. Neither have I rested in the experience of God's inward workings upon my soul ; but the holy scriptures have been the man of my counsel. Insomuch that I have not hearkened any further to the persuasions and operations of the Holy Spirit than what Lmight do, yea and ought, by faith grounded upon the blessed word. The scrip- tures, through the free grace of a divine blessing, by ahumble application of them, have sweetly supported me.",' In this work Mr. Canne gives his opinion of the times, which will undoubtedly afford the reader some amusement. He considered the state policy during the commonwealth as the second apostacy. "Are not the tryers," says he, " zealous men against the idolatry of the first apostacy ? Theywill tell you, there must be no inventions in God's worship ; but every thin. must be according to the pattern, as in the ministry, worship, and government. But what say ye of the character of the later apostacy? Are they not lovers of themselves, covetous, proud? I wish for their own sakes it be not so. The tryers are the great crackers, and they think they deserire to be named mend-all, as having done a great piece of ser- vice about church reformation. This, "I think, I may safely say, and that truly by experience: That the present national clergy is more corrupt, and far worse, than it was in the bishops' time. For, first, there were then no professors but could have found, within a fewmiles of their dwellings, some honest puritan, or nonconformist, to go to, whereby to be refreshed and built up in faith, knowledge, and holiness: whereas now, men may travel twenty, thirty, forty miles, and not find a parish priest that hath any gospel savour in his ministry : no power, sweetness, or life ; but old, formal, fruit- less stuff, said over ahundred times. Secondly, though it be true, the bishops took little Care to reform the clergy, but rather how to suspend and silence, as some do know, such as witnessed against their unsanctified callings and places; nevertheless, if the times be compared, the enormities of the national clergyare less looked into and reformed. I say less now than in the prelates' times. I remember the old non- conformists were wont to call the bishops making of priests, their licenses, and visitations, the picking of men's pockets. I wish it may not appear so in the day of Christ, that some of these men have done little better."t In speaking of the three horns plucked up by the roots, he Canoe's Time of the End, p. 266-270. . + Ibid. p. 49, 97, 58. VOL. III.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=