An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…

In his study (which was all my help) I remember not one Greek Book but the Testament, nor one Father but Austin de Civitate Dei, nor any of the Councils but ordinary English and Neoteric Divines; and he studied little all the year but Bishop Andrews Sermons. Hitherto I had no Nonconformists Principles. And if you suspect my own Father, it is enough to say, that he only read the Scriptures in his house, and scarcely any other Book, and I never heard any prayer (out of the Pulpit) but a form till I was about seventeen years of age. ⟨p. 59⟩But because my Father would not drink and swear with them, and restrained us from the dancing-place on the Lords-day that we might read the Scriptures that while, and sometimes would speak of God and Scriptures, and the life to come, he was by the drunkards and rabble of the place reviled by the names of Precisian and Puritan, as bitterly as any Nonconformist now, though he never scrupled any point of Conformity, nor spake against it. And hearing all the drunkards revile that which I knew to be good, as Puritanism, I liked that name no whit the worse. But lest you think that the experience of such Priests did disaffect me, I shall add, that though there was another such an old Reader that never Preached in the same Parish at another Church, and very many Parishes round about us had the like, yet three neighbour-Ministers, venerable for age, (dying two above eighty years a piece, and the third near it) and very worthy godly Conformists, who were my most profitable acquaintance, did keep me from the principles of Nonconformity. Of whom (though they had all much rather have been rid of it, and so were before they died) one was a learned great disputer for Conformity, and was my chief Tutor, and did so engage me in reading Dr. Burgess, Mr. Sprint, Bishop Downham for Episcopacy, Mr. Hooker, &c. that I was not at all in doubt of the matter; and with this satisfaction I was Ordained and did subscribe. But I had never read any thing on the other side, nor ever read the Book of Ordination, nor exactly weighed what I subscribed to: But being satisfied that Episcopacy was the only Government, and that Ceremonies and Liturgy were lawful, I thought I was not bound to seek after objections and difficulties, and to fill my head with scruples, but to go on quietly as I begun.

In his study (which was all my help) I remember not one Greek Book but the Testament, nor one Father but Austin de Civitate Dei, nor any of the Councils but ordinary English and Neoterick Divines; and he studied little all the year but Bishop Andrews Sermons. Hitherto I had no Nonconformists Principles. And if you suspect my own Father, it is enough to say, that he only read the Scriptures in his house, and scarcely any other Book, and I never heard any prayer (out of the Pulpit) but a form till I was about seventeen years of age.