NUMBER XXXVI.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1711.
Tres species tam dissimiles, tria talia texta,
Una dies dedit exitio——
Such different forms of various threads combin'd,
One day destroy'd in common ruin join'd.
I WRITE this paper for the sake of the dissenters, whom I take to be the most spreading branch of the whig party, that professes Christianity; and the only one that seems to be zealous for any particular system of it; the bulk of those we call the low church, being generally indifferent and undetermined in that point; and the other subdivisions having not yet taken either the Old or the New Testament into their scheme. By the dissenters therefore it will easily be understood that I mean the presbyterians, as they include the sects of anabaptists, independents, and others, which have been melted down into them since the restoration. This sect, in order to make itself national, having gone so far as to raise a rebellion, murder their king, destroy monarchy and the church, was afterward broken in pieces by its own divisions; which made way for the king's return from his exile. However the zealous among them did still entertain hopes of recovering the dominion of grace: whereof I have read a remarkable passage in a book published about the year 1661,
