XVI. THE HEIR.

I EVER beheld Somersetshire, in one respect, as the most ancient and honourable shire in England. For Glastonbury in that county was the British Antioch, where the Britons were first called Christians, by the preaching of Joseph of Arimathea, though the truth of the story be much swoln by the leaven of legendary fictions.

But hereafter Somersetshire, in another respect, must be allowed the eldest county in England; as Christianity first grew there, so charity first sprang thence, in that their sober, serious, and seasonable declaration, wherein they renounce all future animosities in relation to their former sufferings.

Now, as the zeal of Achaia [2 Cor. ix. 2.] provoked very many, so the example of Somersetshire hath been precedential to other counties to follow it. Kent and Essex since have done, and other shires are daily doing the same; yea, and I hope that those counties which lag the last in writing, will be as forward as the first in performing their solemn promises therein.