been injurious to humanity it self if I had thought such men as incredible as some have now declared themselves in Print to be I scarcely now believe any meer humane History any farther than the agreement of men of contrary minds and interests in matters of common and easie notice giveth a kind of natural evidence to it beyond what it borroweth from the honesty of the Writer or at least farther than the footsteps of very great Candor Conscience and unbyassed impartiality shall speak more for my belief than the Authors most confident words or Oaths And herein modest men and disinterested Peace-makers are now believed by me before all the greatest the learned'st and the most zealous Contenders in the world Davids saying that All men are Lyars and Pauls Let God be true and every man a Lyar were too much overlooked by me till men themselves had told me what they are and warned me to cease from man as vanity Mr. Danvers his accusations were partly of such publick parties the ancient Churches the Novatians the Donatists the old Brittains the Waldenses the Wickliffians c. and partly of such publick Writings as Augustines and many others as one would think any Scholar that will read the cited Books might soon see whether he or I be the falsifyer especially about a practical matter in which their Judgments could not easily be hid from all the Adversaries about them no more than from those of their own mind and way His accusation of the Novatians he neither defendeth that I see nor confesseth to be a slander but silently passeth all the matter by His Accusation for such it is of the rest for the most part at least he still defendeth He cannot Repent of it and I can no more believe him when I have read the Books that are our Records than I can if he would as fiercely contend that the Bishops or Church of England are Anabaptists because of his accusation of the now Bishop of Lincoln But should I be so injurious to the Reader and my self as to cast away precious time in again and again answering his untrue Citations and expositions of words which are before our eyes and which neither his word or mine can satisfie any Reader of who must know the truth by the Books themselves when he tells men of my writing for Popery Conformity c. can his yea or my nay go for proof with any that is in doubt which of us saith true Must not the perusal of the full words decide the Case And so it must as to his Accusations of the several Churches and Parties in questions And if his Believers would be perswaded that the Welsh Tongue is the common Language of England if he do but vehemently affirm it and revile such as contradict him I could not help it nor must I write books about it as long as he hath leisure Ink and Paper to hold on His Exclamations of the unsatisfactories of these general answers or refusals shall not tempt me to cast away the little relicts of my time in numbring and disproving all the Vntruths that he hath written and will write By what Law am I condemned to such a Drudgery The very first Paragraph of this his third Reply hath more than one or two But the chief substance of his Book is his reiterated accusation of my words in my first Book that many then Baptized naked for which as a heynous Calumny I must Repent Readers my Conscience telleth me that Repentance is such an excellent healing Duty that I shall loath my self so far as I find my self unwilling of it But is it possible for a man to Repent of all that the several contradicting Sects Papists Quakers Anabaptists c. call him to Repent of when that is best with one side which is the worst to divers others We are openly agreed 1. That the Baptizing naked is not the usual way of the Anabaptists in England 2. That it was not the way of the most of them when I wrote that book 3. That we heard of none with us in England that for any considerable time continued it The Questions remaining are 1. Whether when I wrote those words the common Fame or Report of the Countrey where I lived took it not for as certain that divers then in some places did it as the most Scriptural way as that the Quakers Quaked and that the Ranters Swore 2. Whether ever any Anabaptist that then was acquainted with me yea or any one person denyed it to my hearing or knowledge 3. Whether Mr. Tombes denyed it when I wrote it All these I will no farther trouble the Reader about than to tell him that he neither doth or can disprove me and should I recant what I said of these three questions I must tell three downright Lyes And is that a safe way of Repenting 4. But let the question be whether I did well to believe it I answer I believed it not as a Divine Revelation but as a Humane Report which constrained a proportionable belief which it was not in my power to deny 5. But should I not yet disbelieve it Answer I am more willing to do it than not but I am not able I do believe according to the measure of the aforesaid evidence that it is a Truth I cannot believe the contrary I hear not a word to warrant me to disbelieve it it is not in my power and I must not lie to say that I believe it not 6. But the next Question is Did I not say more or mean more at least than that it was but at that time the practise of many but not of most or their ordinary way and that I knew it no otherwise than by uncontradicted Fame Answer Either I did say or mean more or I aid not If I did I hereby renounce it and declare that I wronged them If I did not as I know I did not to say I did were to lie and is it worthy his writing a Book to tempt a man to lie If he will prove that I said more the words must decide it if that I meant more he is not to be believed of my heart as if he knew it better than I. But he proveth it that I intended them all contrary to my most express words 1. He saith it is my scope and design 2. From my Arguments which take in the whole Party 3. From the Instance c. Reader If I were to teach a man to understand my book before he wrote against it I should have some little hope of true dealing in his Report how weak soever his Arguing were But when I must deal with a man that understandeth not plain English because partiality will not suffer him and will not learn to understand what he doth not and yet cannot forbear a publick contradicting it till he understand it would it not be a slavery to be tyed to write against such a man as long as he would write should I live
swallow such things as these and think that they serve God in reviling all that are against them Were we agreed against Infants Covenant-Right when should we ever be agreed at what Age it is that they are to be received and when a Childs Profession were Valid But he that thinketh that 1. All the Christian World will ever Unite in the Renouncing of all Infants Covenant-Rights and Hopes 2. Or that without Unity in the Essentials or without Love and Peace the Church of Christ is in a prosperous State doth not judge as I do upon the most serious thoughts that I am able to exercise and as I doubt not but I shall judge to the last breath which is not like to be far off TO Mr. E. HVTCHINSON SIR WHen I read you general Accusation of my Firey discouraging of Reprovers c. I began to bethink me who they were in all my life time that had to my face reproved me and been discouraged by any unthankful passionate returns of mine and not remembring any one in my life unless you will call my Contradicting men in disputation and Altercation in case of differences of Judgment by that name I did read on in expectation of fuller information and I perceived that it was not any verbal rejecting any reproof of my present Monitors that you meant but my published Writings against those called Anabaptists I have long had far lowder calls than yours to Review my Life and Writings and to judge of them as impartially as I can Upon the Review I am Conscious 1. That I never meddled at first with Mr. Tombes till he unavoidably constrained me by sending those whom he had prevailed with to me to tell me that if I would not answer him they must lay their change so far on my refusal to satisfie them We lived to gether till then without any meddling with the difference by me 2. I find that when he had without my consent published these Papers which I privately sent him with his Answer I gave not a word of Reply to them till Mr. Danvers made it seem necessary to me though it be above 20 years since they were written Surely my silence was no furious Contradiction 3. I find that when Mr. Tombes published them so long ago and they have been in your own hands in Mr. Tombes his Book neither you nor others till now that I know of shewed me any such fury in them And those that I have spoke with say that there is no such thing but that his Reply is passionate which I leave to others judgment that yet may read them in his Book together 4. I find that in 1659. when I endeavoured to perswade Mr. Lambe and Mr. Allen to Christian Concord that I did not strive against their Anabaptistry but only to satisfie them that holding that difference they yet ought to satisfie themselves in that which they took to be their Duty and to hold loving Communion with the Churches and Christians of the other mind And when they had renounced their Separation it was not I but their own Light Experience and Consideration by what other helps I know not that made them Renounce their Anabaptistry 5. When before that there was a Treaty in London for the Reconciling of the Presbyterians Iudependents I did first at home to the Ministers of Worcestershire mantain by a set Disputation that it was our Duty to seek Peace and Communion with the Anabaptists and after sent up the Terms of that desired Concord to London to Mr. Allen who at some Meetings for that purpose told me the business went hopefully on till the Confusions in 1659. disturbed and overthrew all 6. I have above 20 years in Print and Pulpit frequently told the Churches that they are greatly beholden to Gods Providence in permitting the Anabaptists to call us so lowd to the serious confideration of of our Baptism and that if those that were Baptized in Infancy be not brought to as serious understanding and resolved a renewing of that Covenant as if they had never been Baptised before yea and pass not out of the state of Infant Church-membership into that of the Adult by a solemn transltion in owning of their Covenant these Church Corruptions will be continued which are the Scandal and Temptation of the Anabaptists And to that end I wrote a Treatise of Confirmation 7. I have Printed in this last Book recited by Mr. Barret in the end of his Queres such an Offer of Brotherly Concord with the Anabaptists supposing our continued difference in that point even the very words of such a Profession on which both parties may with mutual forbearance live in brotherly Love and Communion as never any man did to me accuse either of Rigor Unlawfulness or Insufficiency to that end And if you resolve that you will have no Communion with any in the world but those that are of your Opinion against Infant-Baptism your Communion will be narrower than mine and such talk as this of yours is never like to draw me to your mind 8. I have many years insisted more upon the terms and improvement of our Baptismal Covenant as containing that very Touch-stone or state of Evidence by which both our sincere Grace and our right to Church-Communion must be tryed than any man that I know of of which my Family Book is a full proof 9. To the Reconciling of men herein I have oft shewed that If our Childrens part in the Covenant of Grace upon their Parents dedication of them to God â—nd so their Church-membership were but yielded the rest whether they should actually be Baptized with Water would be much less cause of our distance and alienation than on both sides it is usually judged Yea if the Anabaptists would but say I Dedicate this Child to God as far as he hath given me power and heartily desire that God may be his Father Christ his Saviour and the Holy Ghost his Sanctifier And did ever any of you prove this to be a sin And we are ready on our part to profess that Infant-Baptism will save none at age that consent not to the same holy Covenant 10. I have oft told the world that though the Ancient Churches denyed not their Childrens part in the Covenant of Grace nor their right to Pardon and Salvation and Infaut Church membership by that Covenant yet the Time when Children themselves should be solemnly Baptized was left in the Churches for above 200 years to every ones free choice some and the most Christians usually Baptizing them quickly and others thinking as Tertullian that it would bind them faster if they stayed somewhat longer or as Nazianzene thought till they were three or four years old even as one that hath right to a Crown in his Infancy may have his Coronation performed either then or afterward 11. I have oft told the world that I would have this liberty and moderation again revived and that I would have no Anabaptist persecuted or
excommunicated for that his Opinion 12. I never persecuted any of them nor perswaded any to do it nor never endeavoured to hurt them nor denyed them any good that I could do them though I told you truly that even they of Mr. T 's Church that had seemed my old Friends sought my life or ruine by way-saying a man that told them he carryed Letters of mine violently taking them from him and carrying them up to London to the Council to Sir H. V. c. This is the account that my Reviewing Conscience giveth me of my dealing with the Anabaptists with whom to this day I still plead for Love and peaceable Communion upon terms of mutual forbearance And whether it be holy Patience and Humility that takes this for Fire and Fury and cannot bear it consider But yet Fury and Folly you copiously exclaim against and call me to Repent I thank you unfeignedly for that honest wholsome word Repent whether well or ill applyed But your many scornes at my Repentings scarce well agree with the invitation Were I like to have Life and Leisure for such a work I would resolve to Review all my Writings just in the method that Austin did and to tell the Readers what I dislike in them which having no reason to expect I have so dealt already with those that most needed it and corrected others in the later Impressions If you need no Repentance and have written as much as I and that without any fault you have been happier than I. And yet I intend not to give over Writing Preaching Praying praising God or Conference with men because I cannot do any of them innocently in a manner that needed no Repentance But upon the full perusal of your Letter I must say I never had a more Wordy Windy Empty Invitation to Repentance that I remember in my life I looked still when the fault was told me and some words at least named that were guilty of the folly or firyness mentioned or some of my particular sins proved that I might be convinced I looked to find some one Argument of my Books confuted and proved vain or fallacious But it renewed in me that grief and pity for the strange diseasedness of such Dissenters which Mr. Danvers had before caused to find such abundance of Rhetorical Invectives without one word of Proof As if you had prevaricated and had a design to have kept me from Repentance by telling me I had no particulars to Repent of that you could shew What do all your Generals of no answer and tergiversation and abundance the like signifie to any man of common sense unless this be the meaning of them It is Mr. Danvers his Opinion and mine that you are foolish firey injurious frivolous c. Therefore you must Repent of this though we say nothing that should convince a reasonable man But I must retract what I have written against Anabaptists for you invite me to it by a torrent of General Accusations and letting me know that Mr. D. and you do think me Hetorodox And just so doth Mr. Pen and the Quakers do also And so do the Papists and with as great confidence and Oratory perhaps as yours And so do the accusers of the Non-conformists in many Volumes and so do many other Parties And must I be therefore of all their minds Or why more of yours than of theirs if I have nothing from you but confident Gnerals which they can say as well as you Yea thus do the Infidels themselves now use me and must I therefore yield But I have written Fierily against Mr. Danvers 1. Did I begin with Mr. D. or he with me 2. Have I said any thing offensive to him besides the detecting of his marvellous audacity in strange heaps of untruths in matters of Fact and his lamentable injury thereby to the Church of Christ Sir I know you not and should I tell you what a Spirit in your self your copious outcryes and extream tenderness of our dissent and contradiction of you shews and how unlike to the voice of a sheep of Christ it is to cry so loud as if the knife were at your throat when we do but tell the Church of your Errours and Injuries to the Truth upon the urgency of your restless importunity Should I tell you what strange Partiality you shew in finding Meekness Truth and Reason in Mr. Danvers his Books and Folly Fire and No-answer in mine I could not expect that you should ever the more be convinced or Repent but rather take that also for Fiery as taking me for an uncapable Monitor But I desire you only to ask the Opinion of the judicious and impartial herein for Repentance to your self should be no odious thing And whereas you tell me over and over what all wise men now think and say of me and of my Writings am not I an unhappy man that never met with one of those wise men but your self and such professed opposites Anabaptists Quakers Papists or such like But what if I be foolish and you be wise Cannot you suffer fools gladly seeing you your selves are wise And is your impatient and general Invectives and your self-justifying an infallible proof of your great Wisdome Brother upon the deepest search that I am able to make in above 20 years Consideration I am satisfied that you heinously wrong the Mercy of God and the Church and true Believers and their Seed by denying them that part in Gods Covenant and Mercy which I have proved he hath stated on them in his Word I am fully satisfied that God never had Church-Laws on earth whether in innocency or since the Fall which extended not the priviledge of a Covenant and Church-state to the Infants of the Church if they had such on that supposition and that the Church from the dayes of Adam till now hath had Infants members by Gods appointment and that Christ so found them and so continued them and that it was then a thing that none did controvert I am satisfied fully that all that are Discipled are by command to be Baptized and that Nations should be Discipled and the Kingdoms of the world made the Kingdoms of Christ and Christ would have gathered to his Church the whole Jerusalem as the Hen gathereth her Chickens and none were broken off but for unbelief and therefore the Children of believing Jews were not broken off and that we are graffed into the same Olive I am satisfied that they that so hardly digested the forbearance of Circumcision would never have silently past over the Vnchurching of all the Infants without one word of exception nor Christ have so far countenanced the Excepters as to be angry with those that would have forbid Children comeing to him because of such is the Kingdom of Heaven nor the Scripture have talk'd so much of Baptizing Housholds I am not hardened enough to reject so plain a Text as The unbelieving Husband is sanctified c. else were your Children unclean but
Christians in this and former ages in such things I will have no Communion with you The Fathers likened Re-ordaining and Re-baptizing If any would satisfie his own Conscience with being ordained again for surety not Unchurching Degrading Avoiding Reproaching Persecuting those that are not of his mind I would break no peace with such a Re-ordained Person But if the Re-ordaining Sectaries will say as you Our way only is right we only are the true Ministers and Churches and turn like to Donatists I am not of their mind And I here profess that while I tell you of my dissent from your Extream it implyeth no liking of the contrary extream of those that would confound the Christians the Heathens so far as equally to Baptise all their Children if any Baptized person will but perfidiously promise that for them which they never made any intelligent man believe that ever they intended to perform Nor can I love the Hypocritical Religion of the Pharisees which turneth almost all into Ceremony as if they had to do with none but Children nor the turning of Catechising and Confirmation into a lifeless Formality to be instead of a serious Profession at age of the Christian Covenant and a solemn intelligent transition to the Church Priviledges of the Adult I know that it is Satans game first to draw Hypocrites to mortifie Gods Ordinances and turn Religion into an Image or a Carkass and thence to stir up others in several Sects instead of Reviving them to Loath and Bury them Woe to the World because of Offences and Woe to them by whom they come Before I come to my Fourth Part which is my Application to my self I must take notice of some more of your Applicatory Letter in the way And if I disorderly repeat some things in following so disordered a Leader you at least whatever others do must take it patiently it being far short of the tedious work which you seem to call for You would have Mr. Danvers his Letter Answered and you would have better Proof for Infant Baptism It is not in my power to believe the Reasons of my two Books which you generally take for none to be no sound Reasons nor to believe Mr. Danvers his Books not to be such a bundle of most gross mistakes and Vutruths as I scarce ever before met with from a professed Christian If I mistake it is not in my power to do otherwise were I to die this hour And if I have offended the Anabaptists by a faithful perswading them to Repent of the doleful work which they have made in England my Conscience more accuseth me for doing it no more than for doing so much If you take all men for as bad as you describe me that wish your Repentance for such works and also for our woful Church Divisions and differ from you about Infant-Baptism and that yet beg for mutual forbearance and peaceable Communion with you I am not of your spirit or mind and hope neither to live nor die in so narrow a Communion As for any more Answering any of you those that I converse with tell me it is needless I repent that I have been drawn by Contenders so often to interrupt more useful work If more be needful let them do it that have leisure and longer life You say that It is now a common question whether ever I will die a Martyr I am sorry that your Acquaintance are hardened and used to questions that so little concern them and that are so unmeet for their Determination If Suffering be the best State how happy hath this Kingdom been made by the OVERTURNERS Do you mean that you doubt whether ever the Anabaptists will have Power enough to effect it they attempting what they did against me too late just when they and their Co-partners were a pulling down themselves and others Or do you mean that till we are Martyred we are not capable of your good Opinion And are all the Anabaptists Graceless that are yet Unmartyred Or have more Anabaptists than Poedobaptists been Martyred in our times Or is it only your Prognostick on supposition of my Tryal I have more cause to distrust my self and beg Gods strengthning Grace than boastingly to foretel Though all men deny thee yet I will not But your talk of my flight and others suffering by proxie for me doth but shew that you have not that care of avoiding Falshoods in matter of Fact which might invite us to think that you are liker than others to be sound in Doctrine But had you not mistaken yet I might have admonished you not to have condemned every Anabaptist that hath taken a grosser flight than a sick mans going for his health into the Countrey when he had neither any Flock nor Vndertaking nor Call to hinder him At least that you mock not at Paul for being let down by the wall in a Basket nor at Christ for his flight into Aegypt or withdrawing into the Wilderness and into Gallilee c. nor for saying When they persecute you in one City flee to another or at least pass no hard sentence on your self for being yet alive no nor on Mr. Tombes for Writing against Separation and for Communion with the Parish Churches But in the end you Beseech me in the Bowels of Jesus Christ and as I will shortly answer at the great and dreadful Tribunal that among my other Errata I would repent of that absurd and Heretical position of a Baptismal Covenant of Grace running in a Fleshly Line Answ But 1. Just thus the Quakers dreadfully adjâ—re me to repent of all that 's against their way and must I therefore do it And yet Mr. Hicks Ives and other Anabaptists treat them far more sharply than cover I did the Anabaptists 2. I have so many years looked for my appearing at the Tribunal of Christ that if I should not be true to that Light which doth appear to me I were more unexcusable than yet you think me But will your word at that Tribunal pass for Law or for my Justification if I should contradict the Grace and Covenant of God and his Church Laws and state from the dayes of Adam to this day How shall I be sure that it is the Bowels of Christ and not Self-conceitedness and the Zeal of a dividing Sect in which you make this carnest sute to me 3. Especially when you so unintelligibly recite my supposed Errour and give me not a word of Answer against that abundance of Scripture proof which I have brought This is too unsatisfactory an answering of Books to Beseech us to repent of them 4. The Wisdom from above is Pure Peaceable and without Partiality Is yours so Ask any Impartial man whether you write like one that knoweth himself You here call us to Repent of a Position as Absurd and Heretical Did I ever call your Opinion Heretical Not that I remember Such writing as this of mine is fiery but your large Invectives without one word of
Religious a City as this to be to so great a number without any publick worship of God while Mahometans are not quite without Therefore to my great cost I preached neer a year over the Market-house at St. James's And when the Informers began with me and accused me to the Justices of meeting contrary to the Act against Conventicles I gave my Reasons to some Justices and others in word and writing to prove that neither I nor such others might be judged breakers of that Act because we did not meet to worship God with any other manner of Worship than what is according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England For though we did not so much as they we did nothing but what they do For we did but Read the Scriptures Pray freely in the Pulpit and Preach the Christian Doctrine and all this the Church of England doth And though I did not read my self but another did it it was because I was not able which if I were I would do it And expecting quickly to have the Cause come to a Tryal I wrote the sum of this in a Paper and read it openly and then gave it the Clerk that none might misreport me And though some able and pious Lawyers that perused my large Reasons thought that they were very useful for others as well as me yet the noise and murmuring of some Women first and such as Mr. Danvers after sent abroad my Reproaches for it through City and Countrey with so many false additions and so much displeasure as added somewhat to my former knowledge of the difference between Sectarian and Christian Zeal Surely these men do think themselves very grear haters of sin who would render that man odious as a heynous sinner who doth but speak those words to vindicate himself and others from the accusation of Informers which he verily believeth to be true and useful when a man hath for about fourteen years not only preached without pay but at many score pounds a year charges when he hath never taken away one of their Communicants from any Parochial or Non-conformists Church nor meddled with either Sacrament nor ever set up his own preaching against theirs but desired to preach to a few of those many thousands that have none at all nor have any publick worship of God no not so much as the reading of the Liturgy and when for endeavouring this in languishing and pains by great charge and labour his utter ruine if not death shall be unreconcileably endeavoured by one party and for not hateing that which is good in the Liturgy as much as they or upon every surmise of a diseased brain shall become the common obloquy of another the Sectarians and the Women that are infected by their disease Reader judge whether the true belief of Gods acceptance and better than the Hypocrites reward be not necessary to keep such a one from imitating Jonas and quietly leaving men to their beloved ignorance and sin and whether if we had not many soberer men between them that are for neither of the extreams it would not be harder preaching in England than in America Yet with most hearty thanks to God I must say that notwithstanding the opposition of both these extreams God hath abundantly sweetned his service to me by the ready reception and profit of such people as men so much labour to keep in darkness I speak all this with reference to Mr. Danvers his following words also of my preaching in the Parish Churches The foresaid paper of mine he published in his last Book as matter of Accusation and did it according to his custome falsely I briefly mentioned his falsification He now Printeth that Copy as received from his Bookseller in one Column and on the other another called The Copy obtained from the Original to shew that there is but two words difference that is His Copy spake of my Reading the Liturgy and mine spake of my own Reading what my Assistant read the Scripture But 1. If this be all one with him are we not so to judge of his other Expositions I know one whose oversight in writing usually lyeth in leaving out not and un and what is one Syllable The Kings Printer who as Dr. Heylin saith was Fined in the Star-chamber for Printing Thou shalt commit Adultery left out but one poor syllable But he did not justifie it as Mr. Danvers doth 2. If it be his excuse to lay the Copy on his Bookseller may we not take it also for his answer that all the untruths that he hath said of the Novations Donatists Brittains Augustine c. he had them from some body of as great authority as his Bookseller and then all 's well 3. But Reader dost thou not expect that at least he should now say true after so much warning and that this should be a true Copy which he saith without exception is obtained from the Original I assure thee on the word of a Christian it is yet so far from being true that divers lines even a considerable part of the writing is left out Take heed therefore to thy belief hereafter Believe not every Spirit nor every man that raileth at others as less wise or spiritual than he what wonder if he untruly tell us of the opinion of whole parties Novatians Donatists c. and tell us of whole Books that have not one word of what he affirmeth but somewhat for the contrary when he will not only falsifie my own writing even a few lines but defend his so doing against my self that have the Copy by me and that by a greater falshood than the first Are this mans Citations to be credited Yet he goeth on and averteth that there is not another Syllable different And he will prove moreover that If I meet not on pretense of any Religious exercise in other manner c. I must accordingly read the Common-prayer my self Answer So said the Informers but were I at the Sessions upon my Appeal I would be bold to deny it and to say that he that saith but the Lords Prayer doth not use another manner of Worship than the Church and that to do less is not to do that which is of another manner But if I mistake in so thinking it followeth not that I prevaricate or mean dishonestly as he insinuateth But if he want more matter of Reproach or any such as he I will voluntarily give him more so careless am I of such Censures I do therefore tell him that I am no greater an Adversary to the Liturgy than were the old Non-conformists Mr. Hildersham who perswadeth men to come to the beginning of it Mr. Knewstubs that constantly read much of it Mr. Ball that wrote the Tryal of Separation Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Paget Mr. Gifford and such others that did the like And that as before the Wars when I was accounted a Non-conformist I did at Bridgnorth usually read most of the Lords dayes part of the Liturgy and as in