of the Collection. 39
perience, or the Information of Robert Churchman, whom he knew to be a singular honest Man, and utterly devoid of all Fraud and Guile. Moreover, the Writer of this Letter is so Modest, that he was always very backward from publishing it by it self, tho' it makes not a little to his Repute in the faithful and successful discharge of the Ministry. But this new occasion being offer'd, my Importunity obtained of him, that it might be published in this Collection of Stories of this nature, which now accordingly is done.
My second Reason is, because it is such a notable Example of that danger they put themselves in, who leave the true Church of Christ, (which has the Seal and Testimony of Christ, that it is for the main commensurate to his Word as the Church Universal was before the Apostasie, and the Reformed Churches are upon the rising of the Witnesses) to follow the seducing of any private Spirit, especially such as the Quakers were at the first, being drunk and intoxicated with Poyson of Familism, which out of a Spirit of Saducism and Infidelity, believing no subsistence of the Soul of Christ after Death, antiquates all things belonging to his particular Person, as the Sacraments, Festivals, his Intercession, and Personal coming again to Judgment, &c. and makes nothing of any Christ but what is within us. Which is a perfect dissolution, or nulling of the True, Apostolick, Christian Religion, which yet is to be Everlasting, according to the Prediction of Daniel.
And my third and last Reason is, Because this Story with others of Toldervey, Gilpin, James Naylor, and the like, will the better justifie that Satyrical Passage of Jos. Glanvil's Letter to me, wherein he calls Quakerism, The Sink of Folly and Madness; which I conceive he doth, with an Eye to the former times of the Quakers. But that there is now a more tolerable estimate to be made of them, (tho' some sordid Badges of Familism still to stick to them; and indeed, all that remains ugly in them is such, tho' they do not consider it) I shall note in my Advertisement on that 'Letter, which is as follows.
