, and all ranks, have turned their back
upon it: and my humble advice to you as a dying brother is, To stand
still, and beware of all tampering with these betrayers of the royal
interest, and concerns of Christ's kingdom, and listen to no conferences
with the ministers and professors of this generation, till the public
defections of this land from the doleful source of all our ruin and
misery, that sin of the public resolutions, the compliance with prelacy,
the church-ruining and dividing indulgences and toleration, until the
present sinful course of vindicating all these defections, and burying
all the testimonies against the same: I say, until these be
acknowledged, and publicly rejected and disowned, both by church and
state.

"I die a true Protestant, and to my knowledge a reformed Presbyterian,
in opposition to popery, prelacy, and malignancy, and whatever is
contrary to truth, and the power of godliness, as well against
flattering pretenders to unwarrantable zeal on the right hand, as
against lukewarmness on the left; adhering with my soul to the holy
sweet scriptures, which have often comforted me in the house of my
pilgrimage, our confession of faith, our catechisms, the directory for
worship, covenants, national and solemn league and covenant,
acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, with the causes of
God's wrath, and to all the faithful public testimonies given against
defections of old or late, particularly these contained in the
informatory vindication, and that against the toleration, and the two
last declarations emitted since this fatal revolution, which testimonies
I ever looked upon as a door of hope of the Lord's returning again to
these poor backslidden lands.

"And now, my dear friends, let nothing discourage you in that way. The
Lord will maintain his own cause, and make it yet to triumph. The nearer
to-day it may be the darker, but yet _in the evening time it shall be
light_, and the farther distant ye keep from all the courses and
interests of this generation, the greater will your peace and security
be. O! labour to be in Christ, for him, and like him, much in reading of
the holy scriptures, much in prayer and holy unity among yourselves. Be
zealous and tender in keeping up your private fellowship for prayer and
Christian conference, as also your public correspondences and general
meetings, go to them and come from them as these intrusted, really
concerned and weighted with Christ's pr