endeavour her satisfaction; which while he did, he himselfe became as unsatisfied, or rather satisfied against it. First, therefore, he dilligently search'd the scriptures alone, and could find in them no ground at all for that practice; then he bought and read all the eminent treatices on both sides, which at that Lime came thick from the presses, and still was clear\! in the error of the predobaptists. After this, his wife being brought to bed, that he might, if possible, give the religious party no oflence, he invited all the ministers to dinner, and propounded his doubt, and the ground thereof to them. None of them could defend their practice with any satisfactory reason, but the tradition of the church, from the ·primitive times, and their maine buckler of federal! holinesse, which Tombs and Denne had excellently overthrowne. He and his w_ife then, professing themselves unsatisfied in the practice, desir'd their opinions, what they ought to doe. Most answer'd, to conforme to the general! practise of other Christians, how darke soever it were to themselves; but Mr. }'oxcraft, one of the assembly, say'd that except they were convinc'd of the warrant of that practise from the word, they sinn'd in doi_ng it, wherenpon that infant was not baptized.' And now the governor and his wife, notwithstanding that they forsooke not their assemblies, nor retracted their benevolences and civilliti es from them, yet were they rcvil'd by them, call'd fanaticks and anabaptists, and often glanc'd at in their pnblick sermons. And not orily the ministers, but all their zealous sectaries, conceiv'd implacable mallice against them, upon this account; which was carried on with a spiritt of envy and persecution to the last, though he, on his side, might well have said to them, as his Master to the old pharisees: "Many good workes have I done among you, for which "of these do you hate me?" Yet the generallity, even of that b Surely this shews an unbecoming propensity to speculate in relig ion; the story is, howeve r)told with candour.
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