as well as their pastor, whom
they always chose, and not the civil magistrate. If such found anything
pressing upon them to either duty, even without the distinction of clergy
or laity, persons of any trade had their liberty, be it never so low and
mechanical. But alas! even these people suffered great loss: for tasting
of worldly empire, and the favour of princes, and the gain that ensued,
they degenerated but too much. For though they had cried down national
churches and ministry, and maintenance too, some of them, when it was
their own turn to be tried, fell under the weight of worldly honour and
advantage, got into profitable parsonages too much, and outlived and
contradicted their own principles; and, which was yet worse, turned, some
of them, absolute persecutors of other men for God's sake, that but so
lately came themselves out of the furnace; which drove many a step
further, and that was into the water: another baptism, as believing they
were not scripturally baptized: and hoping to find that presence and
power of God, in submitting to this watery ordinance, which they desired
and wanted.

These people also made profession of neglecting, if not renouncing and
censuring not only the necessity, but use, of all human learning, as to
the ministry; and all other qualifications to it, besides the helps and
gifts of the spirit of God, and those natural and common to men. And for
a time they seemed, like John of old, a burning and a shining light to
other societies.

They were very diligent, plain, and serious; strong in scripture, and
bold in profession; bearing much reproach and contradiction. But that
which others fell by, proved their snare. For worldly power spoiled them
too; who had enough of it to try them what they would do if they had
more: and they rested also too much upon their watery dispensation,
instead of passing on more fully to that of the fire and Holy Ghost,
which was his baptism, who came with a fan in his hand, that he might
thoroughly, and not in part only, purge his floor, and take away the
dross and the tin of his people, and make a man finer than gold. Withal,
they grew high, rough, and self-righteous; opposing further attainment;
too much forgetting the day of their infancy and littleness, which gave
them something of a real beauty; insomuch that many left them, and all
visible churches and societies, and wandered up and down as sheep without
a shepherd, and as doves without their ma