“First, That the People in such a Parish may generally meet together to see one another’s faces, and beget or preserve fellowship in friendly love.
“Secondly, To be a day of rest, or cessation from labor; so that they may have some bodily rest for themselves and cattle.
“Thirdly, That he who is chosen Minister (for that year) in that Parish may read to the People three things. First, the affairs of the whole Land, as it is brought in by the Post-Master. Secondly, to read the Law of the Common-wealth, not only to strengthen the memory of the ancients, but that the young people also, who are not grown up to ripeness of experience, may be instructed to know when they do well and when they do ill. For the Law of a Land hath the power of Freedom and Bondage, life and death, in its hand, therefore the necessary knowledge to be known; and he is the best Prophet that acquaints men therewith, that as men grow up in years they may be able to defend the Laws and Government of the Land. But these Laws shall not be expounded by the Reader; for to expound a plain Law, as if a man would put a better meaning than the letter itself, produces two evils: First, the pure Law and the minds of the people will be thereby confounded, for multitude of words darken knowledge. Secondly, the reader will be puffed up in pride to contemn the Law-makers, and in time that will prove the father and nurse of tyranny, as at this day is manifested by our Ministry.”
“But because the minds of people generally love discourses, therefore, that the wits of men, both old and young, may be exercised, there may be speeches made in a threefold nature:
“First, To declare the acts and passages of former ages and governments, setting forth the benefit of freedom by well-ordered Governments, as in Israel’s Commonwealth, and the troubles and bondage which hath always attended oppression and oppressors, as the State of Pharaoh and other tyrant kings, who said the Earth and People were theirs, and only at their disposal.
“Secondly, Speeches may be made of all Arts and Sciences, some one day some another, as in Physics, Chyrurgery, Astrology, Astronomy, Navigation, Husbandry, and such like. And in these speeches may be unfolded the nature of all herbs and plants, from the Hysop to the Cedar, as Solomon writ of. Likewise men may come to see into the nature of the fixed and wandering Stars, those great powers of God in the heavens above. And hereby men will come to know the secrets of Nature and Creation, within which all true knowledge is wrapped up, and the light in man must arise to search it out.
“Thirdly, Speeches may be made sometimes of the nature of mankind, of his darkness and of his light, of his weakness and of his strength, of his love and of his envy, of his inward and outward bondages, of his inward and outward freedoms, etc. And this is that at which the ministry of Churches generally aim; but only that they confound their knowledge by imaginary study.... And thus to speak, or thus to read the Law of Nature (or God) as He hath written His name in every body, is to speak a pure language, and this is to speak the truth as Jesus Christ spake it, giving to everything its own weight and measure. By this means in time men shall attain to the practical knowledge of God truly, that they may serve Him in spirit and in truth: and this knowledge will not deceive a man.”
His Answer to Objections.
Then follows a passage which even to-day would bring down the wrath of “zealous but ignorant professors” upon the head of any author acknowledging it, if within their sphere of influence. He continues: