Behold, one seven more than seven decads of persons, who, being devoted unto the sacred ministry of our Lord, were the first that enlightened the dark regions of America with their ministry! Know, reader, that it was by a particular diversion given by the hand of Heaven unto the intentions of that great man, Dr., William Ames, that we don't now find his name among the first in the catalogue of our New-English worthies. One of the most eminent and judicious persons that ever lived in this world, was intentionally a New-England man, though not eventually, when that profound, that sublime, that subtil, that irrefragable,-yea, that angelical doctor, was designing to transport himself into New-England; but he was hindred by that Providence which afterwards permitted his widow, his children, and his library, to be translated hither. And now, "our fathers, where are they? These prophets, have they lived for ever?" "Twas the charge of the Almighty to other Kings, "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm?" But the King of Terrors, pleading an exemption from that charge, has now touched every one of these holy men; however, all the harm it has done unto them, has been to carry them from this present evil world unto the "spirits of just men made perfect." I may now write upon all these old ministers of New-England the epitaph which the apostle hath left upon the priests of the Old Testament, "These were not suffered to continue, by reason of death;" adding the clause which he hath left upon the patriarchs of that Testament, "These all died in faith.” Wherefore we pass on to

THE SECOND CLASSIS.

It shall be of young scholars, whose education for their designed ministry

not being finished, yet came over from England with their friends, and had their education perfected in this country, before the College was come unto maturity enough to bestow its laurels.

Of these two sevens, almost all are gone, where to be is, by far, the best of all. But these were not come to an age for service to the church of God, before the wisdom, and prudence of the New-Englanders did remarkably signifie it self, in the founding of a COLLEGE, from whence the most of their congregations were afterwards supplied; "a river, the streams whereof made glad the city of God." From that hour Old England had more ministers from New, than our New-England had since then from Old; nevertheless after a cessation of ministers coming hither from Europe, for twenty years together, we had another set of them, "coming over to help us;' wherefore take yet the names of two sevens more.

We will now proceed unto

THE THIRD CLASSIS.

It shall be of such ministers as came over to New-England after the re-establishment of the Episcopal-church-government in England, and the persecution which then hurricanoed such as were non-conformists unto that establishment.

It is well known that, quickly after the revival of the English Hierarchy, those whose consciences did not allow them to worship God, in some ways and modes then by law established, were pursued with a violence which doubtless many thousands of those whom the Church of England, in its national constitution, acknowledges for her sons, were so far from approving or assisting, that they abhorred it. What spirit acted the party that raised this persecution, one may guess from a passage which I find in a book of Mr. Giles Firmius. A lady assured him that she, signifying unto a parliament-man her dislike of the "act of uniformity," when they were about it, and saying, "I see you are laying a snare in the gate," he replied, "Ay, if we can find any way to catch the rogues, we will have them!" It is well known that near five-and-twenty hundred faithful ministers of the Gospel were now silenced in one black day, because they could not com

ply with some things, by themselves counted sinful, but by the imposers confessed indifferent. And it is affirmed that, by a modest calculation, this persecution procured the untimely death of three thousand non-conformists, and the ruine of threescore thousand families, within five-and-twenty years. Many retired into New-England, that they might have a little rest at noon, with the flocks of our Lord in this wilderness; but setting aside some eminent persons of a New-English original, which were driven back out of Europe into their own country again, by that storm, these few were the most of the ministers, that fled hither from it. I will not presume to give the reasons why no more; but observing a glorious providence of the Lord Jesus Christ in moving the stars to shine where they were most wanted, I will conclude, lamenting the disaster of New-England, in the interruption which a particular providence of Heaven gave unto the designs of that incomparable person Dr. John Owen, who had gone so far as to ship him self, with intents to have taken this country in his way to his eternal rest: it must have been our singular advantage and ornament, if we had thus enjoyed among us one of the greatest men that this last age produced.

REMARKS,

ESPECIALLY UPON THE FIRST CLASS, IN OUR CATALOGUE OF MINISTERS.

I. All, or most, of the ministers that make up our two first classes, came over from England within the two first lustres of years, after the first settlement of the country. After the year 1640, that part of the Church of England which took up arms in the old cause of the "long Parliament," and which, among all its parliament-men-commanders, lord-lieutenants, major-generals, and sea-captains-had scarce any but conformists; I say, that part of the Church of England, knowing the Puritans to be generally inclinable unto those principles of such writers as Bilson and Hooker, whereupon the Parliament then acted; and seeing them to be generally of the truest English spirit, for the preservation of the English liberties and properties, for which the Parliament then declared, (although there were some non-conformists in the King's army also:) it was found necessary to have the assistance of that considerable people. Whereupon ensued such a change of times, that instead of Old England's driving its best people into New, it was it self turned into New. The body of the Parliament and its friends, which were conformists in the beginning of that miserable war, before the war was ended, became such as those old non-conformists, whose union with them in political interests produced an union in religious. The Romanizing Laudians miscarried in their enterprize; the Anglicane church could not be carried over to the Gallicane. This was not the first instance of a shipwreck befalling a vessel bound for Rome; nor will it be the last: a vessel bound such a voyage must be shipwrecked, though St. Paul himself were aboard.

II. The occasion upon which these 'excellent ministers retired into an horrid wilderness of America, and encountred the dismal hardships of such a wilderness, was the violent persecution wherewith a prevailing party in the Church of England harassed them. In their own land they were hereby deprived, not only of their livings, but also of their liberty to exercise their ministry, which was dearer to them than their livings—yea, than their very lives: and they were exposed unto extreme sufferings, because they conscientiously dissented from the use of some things in the worship of God, which they accounted sins. But I leave it unto the consideration of mankind, whether this forbidding of such men to do their duty, were no ingredient of that iniquity which, immediately upon the departure of these good men brought upon Great Britain, and especially upon the greatest authors of this persecution, "a wrath unto the uttermost," in the ensuing desolations. All that I shall add upon it is, that I remember the prophet, speaking of what had been done of old by the Assyrians to the land of the Chaldæans, uses an expression which we translate, in Isa. xxiii. 12: "He brought it unto ruine:" but there is a Punic word, Mapatra, which old Festus (and Servius) affirm to signify cottages; according to Philargyrius, it signifies, Casas in Eremo habitantium:* now that is the very word here used, and the condition of cottagers in a wilderness is meant by the ruine there spoken of. Truly, such was the ruine which the ceremonious persecutors then brought upon the most conscientious non-conformists unto their unscriptural ceremonies. But as the "kingdom of darkness" uses to be always at length overthrown by its own policy, so will be at last found no advantage unto that party in the Church of England, that the orders and actions of the churches by them thus produced, become an history. III. These ministers of the gospel, which were (without any odious comparison) as faithful, painful, useful ministers as most in the nation, being thus exiled from a sinful nation, there were not known to be left so many non-conformist ministers as there were counties in England: and yet they were quickly so multiplied, that a matter of twenty years after, there could be found far more than twenty hundred, that were so grounded in their non-conformity, as to undergo the loss of all things, rather than make shipwreck of it. When Antiochus commanded all the books of sacred Scripture to be burnt, they were not only preserved, but presently after they appeared out of their hidden places, being translated into the Greek tongue, and carried abroad unto many other patrons. It was now thought there was effectual care taken to destroy all those men that made these books the only rule of their devotions; but, behold, they presently appeared in greater numbers, and many other nations began to be illuminated by them. IV. Most, if not all, of the ministers who then visited these regions, were either attended or followed with a number of pious people, who had lived within the reach of their ministry in England. These, who were now also

• Cottages of dwellers in the wilderness.

+ Desert lodges.

become generally non-conformists, having found the powerful impressions of those good men's ministry upon their souls, continued their sincere affections unto that ministry, and were willing to accompany it unto those utmost "ends of the earth." Indeed, the ministers of New-England have this always to recommend them unto a good regard with the Crown of England, that the most flourishing plantation in all the American dominions of that crown, is more owing to them than to any sort of men whatsoever. V. Some of the ministers, and many of the gentlemen that came over with the ministers, were persons of considerable estates; who therewith charitably brought over many poor families of godly people, that were not of themselves able to bear the charges of their transportation; and they were generally careful also to bring over none but godly servants in their own families, who afterwards, by God's blessing on their industry, have arrived, many of them, unto such plentiful estates, that they have had occasion to think of the advice which a famous person gave in a public sermon at their first coming over: "You (said he) that are servants, mark what I say: I desire and exhort you to be kind a while hence unto your master's children. It won't be long before you that came with nothing into the country, will be rich men, when your masters, having buried their rich estates in the country, will go near to leave their families in a mean condition; wherefore, when it shall be well with you, I charge you to remember them."

VI. The ministers and Christians by whom New-England was first planted, were a chosen company of men; picked out of, perhaps, all the counties in England, and this by no human contrivance, but by a strange work of God upon the spirits of men that were, no ways, acquainted with one another, inspiring them, as one man, to secede into a wilderness, they knew not where, and suffer in that wilderness, they knew not what. It was a reasonable expression once used by that eminent person, the present lieutenant-governour of New-England in a very great assembly, "God sifted three nations, that he might bring choice grain into this wilderness." VII. The design of these refugees, thus carried into the wilderness, was, that they might there "sacrifice unto the Lord their God:" it was, that they might maintain the power of godliness and practise the evangelical wor ship of our Lord Jesus Christ, in all the parts of it, without any human innovations and impositions: defended by charters, which at once gave them so far the protection of their King, and the election of so many of their subordinate rulers under him, as might secure them the undisturbed enjoyment of the church-order established amongst them. I shall but repeat the words once used in a sermon preached unto the general court of the Massachuset-colony, at one of their anniversary elections:

"The question was often put unto our predecessors, 'What went ye out into the wilderness to see? And the answer to it is not only too excellent, but also too notorious, to be dissembled. Let all mankind know, that we came into the wilderness, because we would worship God without that Episcopacy, that common-prayer, and those unwarrantable ceremo