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

3. And what is one Minister in a Parish for the doing of all this work? yea, or his poor Curate, if he have one (as few have) for his help? By that time he hath read all the Common-Service twice a day, and Preached twice (or once if you had rather), and hath baptized all the Children, and visited all the Sick, and buried all the Dead, and married all that are to be Married, and performed the common Civilities necessary to friends and neighbours, and taken care for food and raiment, and all the necessaries of his house or life, and instructed and governed aright his family; and if he have Children, taken sufficient care of their education; what time, what strength, what spirits are left, for most of all the work forementioned? It irketh me to think that I should have need to repeat these things, and to tell seeing men with so many words, that there is a Sun in the firmament; or feeling men, that it is cold, when frost and snow do cover the earth!

4. And we must say that which we are most unwilling to say, even when you constrain us; Alas how many Parishes are there in his Majesties three Kingdoms, where the youth, the ignorance, the rawness, the dullness, the carelessness, the idleness, the want of Ministerial utterance in the Teachers, doth persuade all the hearers that they have need of more and better help? The hearers, I say, that should best know their own necessities, do commonly believe it, if you deny it. The Sons of the Church do groan out often in my hearing, [Alas what dry and pitiful work is this! we are afraid all the people will be driven into Conventicles.] Ichabod, or the five Groans of the Church hath long since told you somewhat of this; But the most of England, especially Wales and Ireland, need no Syllogisms to prove it. For my own part, I hear and encourage any that is tolerable; and I speak the best, and conceal the rest, when I speak to the auditors. But truth is truth, and our modesty will not satisfy the hungry, nor save the miserable souls of men. Is it enough to the instructing of the grossly ignorant, and the changing of an earthly mind to a heavenly, and to pull down the strong holds of sin, for a young raw man to read or say a few good words (perhaps least pertinent to the peoples needs) in a tone like a School-boy saying his lesson? Or to talk against Presbyterians to the poor people, that never knew what Presbytery was, and know not what Faith, Repentance, Justification, or Sanctification are? To deny these things, is but to deceive them that are already deceived; but England will no more believe the denial, than him that would deny that the Snow is white.