24 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. language of meekness and conciliation, as follows : " I reverence, and teach others to reverence old age ; but," says he, " it must know there are many infirmities attending it; and is fitter for devotion, than for matters.of contention. If Mr. Vicars had told me some experience of the work of God upon his soul, or of the good providence of God towards his people and himself, I should have diligently observed it, and, I hope, I might have got good by it. But, oh, how unbecoming old age is that spirit of contention which appears in his books ! If he think those places he has cited will serve his turn, surely his skill in presbytery is not great. My pen was running into a hard expression, but I will not provoke the old man : yet I must be plain with him. How uncomely is it for an old professor of piety and religion, to be foundjeering and scorning at piety, a'end religion ? Who would have thought that ever Mr. Vicars should have lived to that day ? The chief scope of his book is to cast dirt upon the apologists. Certainly the spirit of the man is much altered from what he once seemed to be. Is it becoming the gravity and wisdom of old age to charge his brethren publicly, of unworthy double dealing, and of unfaithfulness ? The Lord, I hope, will cause Mr. Vicars to see cause to be humbled for this. WhenMr. Burroughs andhis brethren were stigmatized as schismatics, he discovered his great mildnessand forbearance. " I profess, as in the presence of God," says he, " that upon the most serious examination of my heart, I find in it, that were, my judgment presbyterial, yet I should preach and plead as much for the forbearance of brethrendiffering from me, not only in their judgment, but in their practice, as I have ever done. Therefore, if I should turn presbyterian, I fear I should trouble Mr. Edwards and some others more than I do now : perhaps my preaching and pleading for forbearance of dissenting brethren would be of more force than it is now."t Dr. Grey, who has called our divine " an ignorant, factious, and schismatical minister," has certainly imitated too much, in rancour and misrepresentation, the example of his pre- decessors.t Mr. Baxter, who knew his great worth, said, " If all the episcopalians had been like Archbishop Usher; all the presbyterians like Mr. Stephen Marshall; and all the independents like Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, the breaches of the church would soonhave been healed." The last subject Burroughs's Vindication, p. 24, 25. f Ibid. p. 14. t Grey's- Examination, vol. ii. p. 91.
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