"The ecclesiastical courts are like the courts of the high priests and pharisees, which Solomon, by a spirit of prophecy stileth, dens of lions and mountains of leopards. And those who have to do with them, have found them markets of the sins of the people, the cages of uncleanness, the forges of extortion, the tabernacles of bribery."

There is extant a letter, dated October 3, 1632, written by Mr. Cotton while under concealment, to the lady he had but lately married." It is here inserted as presenting a confidential expression of his feelings at the time.

Dear &c. If our heavenly Father be pleas'd to make our Yoke more heavy than we did so soon expect, remember I pray thee what we have heard, that our heavenly Husband the Lord Jesus, when he 1st called us to Fellowship with himself, called us unto this Condition, to deny ourselves, and to take up our Cross daily, to follow him. And truly, tho' this Cup be brackish at the first; yet a Cup of God's mingling is doubtless sweet in the Bottom, to such as have learned to make it their greatest Happiness to partake with Christ, as in his Glory, so in the Way that leadeth to it. Where I am for the present, I am very fitly and welcomely

accommodated, I thank God: so as I see here I might rest desired enough till my Friends at Home shall direct further. They desire also to see thee here, but that I think it not safe yet, till we see how God will deal with our Neighbours at Home for if you should now travel this Way, I fear you will be watched and dogged at the Heels. But I hope shortly God will make Way for thy safe Coming. The Lord watch over you all for Good, and reveal himself in the Guidance of all our Affairs. So with my Love to thee, as myself, I rest; desirous of thy Rest and Peace in him. J. C.

This letter, written under such circumstances of painful separation, imminent peril, and uncertainty for the future, betrays no petulant impatience or unmanly repinings. It beautifully portrays the sublime peacefulness of the mind, which, in the hour of adversity, is stayed on God. Within six weeks from the writing of the above letter, this pious couple was again united, though obliged still to live in concealment.

After earnest prayer for divine direction, and much consultation with good men upon the subject, Mr. Cotton concluded to seek refuge in Holland, whither so many of the Puritan ministers and people had already fled from the vio

lence of persecution.

Some of his Boston

friends urged him to permit them to sustain and protect him, that they might privately enjoy the benefit of his ministry, without which they must be exposed to great temptation. But the venerable Mr. Dod, an old Puritan famous for his piety and his wit, told them, "that the removing of a minister was like the draining of a fishpond: the good fish will follow the water; but eels, and other refuse fish, will stick in the mud."

That there were in the pond some good fish, with life enough to follow the water, appears from Mr. Cotton's book on the "Holinesse of Church-Members," printed many years after in 1650. It is dedicated "to my honored, worshipful and worthy friends, the Mayor and Justices, the Aldermen and Common Council, together with the whole Congregation and Church at Boston." Speaking of old times with them, he says;-" And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord; and showed yourselves ensamples in some first fruits of reformation, unto many neighbor congregations about you: 1 Thess. 1: 6, 7. And though you saw, that any small measure of reformation, (which then was offensive to the State, and suffered under the name of NON-CONFORMITY,) would

expose yourselves to some sufferings, unless you deserted me, yet I bear you record, you chose rather to expose yourselves to charge and hazard for many years together, than to expose my ministry to silence. And though, at last, in that hour and power of darkness, when the late High Commission began to stretch forth their malignant arm against us, I was forced to depart secretly from you, (from some of you, I say,) howbeit, not without the privity and consent of the chief, yet sundry of you yielded up yourselves, as Ittai to David, to follow the Lord whithersoever he should call; and to go along with me, whether to life or death, in this late howling wilderness. And though, after my departure, you were somewhat carried aside with the torrent of the times, yet, I believe, not without some apprehension of the light of the word going before you, in your judgments, to the satisfaction of your own consciences. And ever since that time, wherein the strong hand of the Lord, and the maglignancy of the times, had set this vast distance of place, and great gulf of seas, between us; yet still you claimed an interest in me, and have yearly ministered some real testimony of your love. And at last, when the Lord, of his rich grace, had dispelled the storm of malignant church-government, you invited

me again and again, to return unto the place and work wherein I had walked before the Lord and you in former times. But the estate of those

of

you who came along with me, and who thereby had most interest in me, could not bear that. Nor would my relation to the church here suffer it. Nor would my age, now stricken in years, nor infirm body, ill-brooking the seas, be able to undergo it, without extreme peril of becoming unserviceable either to yourselves or others."

From this document we learn several things, which might not otherwise have come to our knowledge. It appears, that the affections of his old flock clung to their banished minister: and that, through some twenty years of absence, they annually sent him substantial tokens of their anxiety to promote his comfort. We find too, that when the execution of William Laud and Charles Stuart had removed the bar to his return, they sent him such reiterated and urgent calls as could be declined only for the most imperative reasons.

To these reasons there is another to be added. While the Long Parliament was at the height of its power, before Cromwell had dosed it with his "purging colonels," the presbyterial form of government was imposed by law on the parishes of England. Presbyterianism, at that time, ad