[Sidenote:  Preface to last sermons]

And in this time of his retirement, when the common people were amazed and grown giddy by the many falsehoods, and misapplications of truths frequently vented in sermons; when they wrested the Scripture by challenging God to be of their party, and called upon him in their prayers to patronise their sacrilege and zealous frenzies; in this time he did so compassionate the generality of this misled nation, that though the times threatened danger, yet he then hazarded his safety by writing the large and bold Preface now extant before his last twenty Sermons;—­first printed in the year 1655;—­in which there was such strength of reason, with so powerful and clear convincing applications made to the Non-conformists, as being read by one of those dissenting brethren, who was possessed with such a spirit of contradiction, as being neither able to defend his error, nor yield to truth manifest,—­his conscience having slept long and quietly in a good sequestered living,—­was yet at the reading of it so awakened, that after a conflict with the reason he had met, and the damage he was to sustain if he consented to it,—­and being still unwilling to be so convinced, as to lose by being over-reasoned,—­he went in haste to the bookseller of whom it was bought, threatened him, and told him in anger, “he had sold a book in which there was false Divinity; and that the Preface had upbraided the Parliament, and many godly Ministers of that party, for unjust dealing.”  To which his reply was,—­’twas Tim.  Garthwaite,—­“That ’twas not his trade to judge of true or false Divinity, but to print and sell books:  and yet if he, or any friend of his, would write an answer to it, and own it by setting his name to it, he would print the Answer, and promote the selling of it.”

[Sidenote:  A meeting in Little Britain]

About the time of his printing this excellent Preface, I met him accidentally in London, in sad-coloured clothes, and, God knows, far from being costly.  The place of our meeting was near to Little Britain, where he had been to buy a book, which he then had in his hand.  We had no inclination to part presently, and therefore turned to stand in a corner under a penthouse,—­for it began to rain,—­and immediately the wind rose, and the rain increased so much, that both became so inconvenient, as to force us into a cleanly house, where we had bread, cheese, ale, and a fire for our money.  This rain and wind were so obliging to me, as to force our stay there for at least an hour, to my great content and advantage; for in that time he made to me many useful observations, with much clearness and conscientious freedom.  I shall relate a part of them, in hope they may also turn to the advantage of my Reader.  He seemed to lament, that the Parliament had taken upon them to abolish our Liturgy, to the scandal of so many devout and learned men, and the disgrace of those many martyrs, who had sealed the truth and use of it with