The Preface.
Reverence; and we muſt complementally invite it abroad, not churliſhly turn it out of Doors. This in my opinion were to dance before Dagon, as David did before the Ark: to pay that reſpect to a Lye, which is due onely to the Truth, and this is Anſwer ſufficient. As for that Fraternity, whoſe Hiſtory and Confeſſion I have here adventured to publiſh, I have for my own part no Relation to them, neither do I much deſire their Acquaintance: I know they are Maſters of great Myſteries, and I know withal that nature is ſo large, they mas as wel Receive as Give. I was never yet ſo laviſh an Admirer of the, as to prefer them to all the World, for it is poſſible and perhaps true, that a private man may have that in his poſſeſſion, wherof they are Ignorant. It is not their title and the noyſe it hath occaſion’d, that makes me commend them; The Acknowledgement I give them, was firſt procured by their Books, for there I found them true Philoſophers, and therefore not Chimæra’s (as moſt think) but Men. Their Principles are every way Corre-
ſpondent