The people which have no way to come to the knowledge of God, no prophesying, no teaching, perish. But that they should of necessity perish, where any one way of knowledge lacketh, is more than the words of Solomon import. But what was the fact? Were those congregations that had those readers of whom the Puritans were speaking--were they, I say, equally well acquainted with, and practically impressed by, the saving truths of the Gospel? Were they not rather perishing for lack of knowledge? To reply,--It was their own fault; they ought to have been more regular in their attendance at church, and more attentive, when there, to what was there read,--is to my mind too shocking, nay, antichristian. Ib. 16. p.137. Now all these things being well considered, it shall be no intricate matter for any man to judge with indifferency, on which part the good of the church is most conveniently sought; whether on ours, whose opinion is such as hath been shewed, or else on theirs, who leaving no ordinary way of salvation for them unto whom the word of God is but only read, do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt, who execute that service in the church of Christ. If so, they were much to be blamed. But surely this was not the case with the better and wiser part of those who, clinging to the tenets and feelings of the first Reformers, and honouring Archbishop Grindal as much as they dreaded his Arminian successors, were denominated Puritans! They limited their censures to exclusive reading,--to reading as the substitute for, and too often for the purpose of doing away with, preaching. Ib. lxv. 8. p.415. Thus was the memory of that sign which they had in baptism a kind of bar or prevention to keep them even from apostasy, whereinto the frailty of flesh and blood, overmuch fearing to endure shame, might peradventure the more easily otherwise have drawn them.