A LETTER TO A Friend in the Country, Touching the present Fears and Jealousies of the Nation, and from whence they Arise.  
SIR,  
I Received yours the 10th. instant, and maturely deliberating thereupon, I resolved to give you some satisfaction in your Request, or at least endeavour it, and that as briefly as I can. The present Jealousies which do possess the minds of the People, especially the vulgar sort, may solely be attributed to the great increase of Sects and Factions amongst us, who though they differ in some points of Religion, yet the aversion of them all is the same to the Church of England. I desire you only to peruse the Records of 40 and 41. and thereby you will plainly see their pretence to Religion and Reformation, and their intention to Rebellion, etc. These present Times may very well parallel with those; it is just as if the old Game was playing over again: 1. In their seditious and factious Pamphlets, thereby endeavouring to render the present Government odious to the People. 2. Their aspersing and calumniating the Ministers of State, as being Popishly affected. 3. Their Whisper at Coffeehouses, (their common places of Rendezvous) of the fears and apprehensions they have of an Arbitrary Government; these seem exactly to be Ushers on to the Good old Cause. These Factions are so increased since the Toleration, that by their boastings of their numbers, and that they are such a considerable part of the Nation, they almost contemn Authority; the Conventicles being now more in number than the Parish Churches, by reason the penal Laws are not put in execution against them. The factious use divers ways and means to draw away the people to become their Proselytes, by their contemning and scandalising the Bishops, and the inferior Clergy of the Church of England, and by their despising of the Liturgy and set Forms of Prayer and dull and dead. In the next place I shall endeavour to give you the Character of a Conventicle.  
The Son of the Church being mounted up into the Pulpit, and placing the Cushion for the ease of his Elbows, and giving the un-Canonical Cloak a twitch or two, or if the weather be hot, lay it aside, that he may not appear lazy by threshing in his Cloak; and which is a sure sign, he beginning to begin, having rolled his Eyes about, as if he were falling into a Trance, he faintly gins with a languishing tone, which as the holy fire of Zeal, comes gradually, by motion gathers heat, advances still higher and higher, till at length being h toughly warm, like a Pot with too much fire under it, the scum of his Brains boils over, and he tumbles his Expressions with that ardour and precipitation, that every word treads upon the heels of another, and bushes it forward; or does it import whether the Expressions be congruous, and whether it may be decent, so long as they are but passionate and vehement, and at every third or fourth sentence crying, Lord, Lord, at which the people are strangely melted, some into sighs and groans, some into tears, which are the Hums and Plaudites of a Conventicle. Now though he pretends to hate all Forms, yet he is not without a Method; therefore he gins with Confession, and tells a parcel of notorious untruths in the name of the people, and will be persuaded he knows them too, saying, We have been guilty of all the sins of Omission and Commission, and it may be gives a Catalogue of them, some of which the Hearers may be so far from being guilty of, that possibly they never heard of them before; and after this rate he goes on, being obliged to a constant use of a little Book, by name, The Gift of Prayer. There is one general Rule which St. Paul gives for public Prayers; I exhort that first of all Supplications, Prayers, Intercessions, and giving of thanks, he made for all men, for Kings, and all that are put in Authority. But for all this, in a two hours' Prayer, first or last, you shall have but little of that; or if the King be named, his Titles of Supremacy are not recited, or at most but half way; or if he be faintly acknowledged the Defender of the Faith, it must not be said that he is Supreme in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil; for you must know, a Presbyter is as great an Enemy to the Supremacy as a Papist. As for Our most Gracious Queen, and James Duke of York, and the rest of the Royal Family, the Bishops and Clergy, they never come in their mouths; so that the Apostle's general Rule, Especially pray for all men in Authority, must be liable to an exception, or else Queens, Dukes, and Bishops, are no body with them, or not in Authority. There is nothing which has gained these men that Veneration amongst the Vulgar, as this Imposture has done, which they endeavour to impose upon easy beliefs, whilst they pretend in these extempore effusions to be immediately inspired by the holy Spirit, which all Dissenters cannot be, and I am afraid none of them are. The Apostle St. Paul speaks of praying with the Spirit; but it is manifest he means there, that miraculous effusion of the holy Ghost, which gave them utterance in divers Languages; and let me hear any one of these men pray in Latin as fluently as they do in English, and I will believe they pray by the Spirit; some of their Prayers are scarce tolerably true English: But it suffices, they say it is by the Spirit, and the people believe, and do from hence conclude, these are the best men in the World having the Spirit in such an extraordinary measure above others. And this is not the smallest Engine they make use of, to undermine the Church of England, and to render the solemn Service of God contemptible, all set Forms, as they say, being dull, flat, dead, etc. though they are in a great measure the express words of Scripture, and warranted from the ancient usage of the Church, if not from the Apostolical times, at least from the next and immediate Age unto them. Now that we may discover the greatness of this dangerous and popular Cheat, we will first make our Appeal to their own Judge, the Scripture, where our blessed Saviour himself gives an express charge against Battologies, and much speaking in our Prayers, and commands a short Prayer, and a set Form too; whatever long Prayer may be, it looks like Hypocrisy: but, says he, when you pray, say, Our Father, etc. How well they observed this Rule, we need not trouble ourselves further to find out, since it is not very many years ago that the Lords Prayer was generally out of fashion in the Pulpit, and so it is still amongst many Dissenters; and yet then they would have us believe they prayed by the Spirit, as well as they do now: and I believe they did, but it must be by the same Spirit that made Saul throw his Javelin at the Musician. Further, if we examine the Fruits of the Spirit, they are Love, Joy, Peace, etc. but not the least mention of extempore Prayer, and the Gifts of the Spirit are Continency, Prophecy, Miracles, &c but no Gift of Prayer. Certainly if it had been a Fruit of the Spirit, or a Gift of the Spirit, it would not have been omitted. But let us appeal to Example; for if it be a Fruit of the Spirit, than all they who can or could pray thus extempore, have the Spirit of God. This is as much a demonstance as can be, for now I will bring you such an Army of Saints, as shall Pray and Fight with all Nations, with Old Nol in the head of them; viz. St. Oliver, St. Bradshaw, St. Ireton, etc. either these Saints prayed by the Spirit, and so were real Saints, or what they prayed was not by the Spirit, and so were no Saints, nor extempore Prayer any evidence of the Spirit of God. I will now appeal to these men, let them speak the Truth, and shame the Devil, Is not this way of praying an Acquisition? Did not the aforementioned Book, or some Collections of their own out of Scripture, often hearing of others, many secret Trials and Exercises therein, bring them to these perfections? or could they from the first moment of their Conversion pray thus? and they do as punctually remember that time, as what they did yesterday; and than if ever they had the Spirit of God, it was as well able to help them as now, and they stood more in need of it; and it would have been more visible and apparent, that it was not they, but the Spirit taught them what to pray. Did they not with much pains and industry attain this which they call a Gift? let them deny it if they dare; for if they will say they never used any of the aforesaid means to help their weaknesses, I will undertake to prove them the most impudent affirmers of a notorious untruth: for many of their expressions are sentences picked out of the Bible, which they read over often, more for the respect of getting Praying-Phrases out of it, then for their being informed of their Duty towards God and Men. They have also so many Fantastical, uncommon words of their own Mintage, and such a singularity of In-coming, and Out-going, and In-dwellings, and I know not what, which like the wild Gourd, spoil all the Pottage. Some of them stuff their heads with Notions what to speak on a sudden occasion; and those which have experienced can tell, that if a man has but the Notions he intends to speak, it is far easier to pray this way, than otherwise; the charge of Generals to the memory, being less burdensome than Particulars. And if a man has but a smooth and voluble Tongue, he affords such hints, which being improved with advantage, do surprise the Speakers and Hearers with Novelties and Agreeableness. And this is the Art of Prayer; a mere Art it is, which if a man has a good stock of Confidence, he may soon arrive at, and the sooner the more Ignorant he is; because he will be proportionably more conceited of himself, which is the reason why so many Mechanics, who can hardly speak sense in common discourse, will steal expressions, which with some Directions and Trials, will soon make them proficient in it. If one would take the pains to write one of their Preachers Prayers for three or four times, he would find it would be all to the same purpose at one time, as at another, only some Sentences misplaced. He being now come to his Text; I will leave him, because he runs so far from it, that I cannot follow him: but if you desire to satisfy your curiosity further, you may only go to a Conventicle, which I am sure you may do without riding 10 miles.  
The Principles of this Geneva offspring are so contrary and averse to Episcopacy, and therefore consequently to Monarchy itself, that by using their old Aphorism to scandalise and slander the Clergy, even as they did to his late most Sacred Majesty of blessed memory, saying, Let us blacken, let us blacken, some will believe it: And thereby rendering the Church-Government to be Superstitious, as they are pleased to call the Holy Rites and Ceremonies of the same. As for the State, they hold their old Maxims, viz. Salus Popuit est Suprema Lex, and that a King is Major Singulis & Minor Vniversalis; These sort of men will seldom speak any thing in favour of the Court, unless it be for the Act of Oblivion, and Toleration; but as for any other proceed, they will always interpret them to the worst sense, which causes such Murmur and Distractions in the hearts of the Ignorant sort of People. These men on the one side, and the Papistical Crew on the other, are fit Instruments to blow a Kingdom into Rebellion, but I hope opportunity will be wanting for either of them to act. The Discoverers of the Plot tell us, that the Jesuits come hither under the notion of Presbyterian Ministers, and truly I think that is as fit a way as any to accomplish their Designs; and I fear, and it is very probable we have a great number of them amongst us still, and therefore it is impossible to root the Jesuits out, unless the other Party and their Ministers be suppressed, for that is the Jesuits only Backdoor to molest us by, and insinuate Rebellion into the disaffected People. I could say much more to this purpose, but being unwilling to trouble you any further, I draw to a termination for this time:  
Sir, Your Real Friend and Servant.